  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 04/01/2017 Meet the magician Great Aziz! And also his unnamed assistant. Indeed, the fact that she’s unnamed alludes to her feelings of discontent. Readers will note that she’s the one keeping the tricks going off without a hitch, putting out fires, calming out-of-control hoses, catching mid-air fish, and more. At last the assistant strikes back, wresting the magic wand from the Great Aziz and proclaiming, “My name is Zaza.” A wand battle ensues—based on rhyming words—as the pair grab the wand back and forth. But after they turn beans into giant, roaring bears, the pair must team up. The magic show is a conducive backdrop for using words that otherwise would take Seussical prowess to connect. Anytime there are words that rhyme, Paschkis puts them in colors, which makes it easy for kids to grasp. Paschkis’ whimsical gouache-and-ink illustrations, meanwhile, lend themselves to the whirling, swooping, colorful magic-show setting. Time to take a bow, team. - Copyright 2017 Booklist. School Library Journal - 05/01/2017 PreS-Gr 2—A mustachioed magician and his glamorous assistant have lots of alphabetical tricks up their sleeves. With the flick of his wand and the change of a letter, the Great Aziz transforms a dish into a fish. He further wows the crowd by turning a rose into a hose, and wire into fire. Zaza, accustomed to cleaning up Aziz's messes, catches the floundering fish and puts it in a bowl, makes sure that the audience isn't soaked by spraying water, and douses the flames. Zaza's patience is pushed to the limit when Aziz turns her wig into a pig. Snatching the magic wand, she turns his black top hat into a bat. Aziz counters by turning the bat into a bag. The spelling sparring rounds spiral out of control when Zaza's beads are turned into beans and the beans into bears. Accepting responsibility for their actions ("I was a cad," says Aziz; "I was just mad," Zaza says), they jointly solve the letter problem and take a big bow together. Paschkis's watercolor illustrations are full of energy and movement. The fluid lines and bold colors capture the power struggle between the two wordsmiths with aplomb. VERDICT A phenomenal phonological fun read-aloud. Children will be shouting for an encore performance.—Linda Ludke, London Public Library, Ont. - Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
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