Spells

It is a fun book. I needed it for a project I am working on and it helped a lot.

Must have in your child's library!

This is written for children and really should never be bought for a child.Garbage!

Spells is a fun book. I am a Librarian and I will be using it several times for story time.

I don't know why it is that I absolutely love books beyond the pale. Emily Gravett lives beyond the Pale, apparently, where she conjures up ideas beyond the norm. She and David Wiesner ( Tuesday , The Three Pigs ) come from that same strange and wonderful netherworld where only a few children's illustrators dwell. "Spells" is Gravett's newest highly imaginative and creative book.I know other reviewers find fault with the story line and artwork, but I think these work together to give us another fascinating study in creativity, for that's what this book is about. Spells, frogs, princes, kisses-- yes, of course, they are at the center. Other reviewers do not think this center holds, that it's just fluff without a story, but I suggest that these rearranged spells are what make the story.Frog has only a tiny frog brain, therefore really cannot think and plan and truly devise a spell to become a prince. As a child, my favorite game with my cousins was "plack" (play like, or play act = plack). We would "plack" we were whatever. Our setting was under my grandparents' house, which sat on a hill. The front of the house was on the ground, the back half on tall stilts of bricks--a true house of the country! We played under that house as if it were our castle. We cast our own "spells" through the magic of imagination, though the word "spells" was never mentioned. It was all done through "play-acting" or "placking."That's Emily Gravett's premise. Imagination. And frog's little brain. Look at the cover. Gravett uses every single page of her book to present her story. Frog is in a globe, you know, one of those magical things you shake and (usually) snow stirs around only to settle again. Frog's globe contains stars. If they can get out, so can he. End pages in the front: Frog escapes and finds a book of spells (title page), which he tears up, being only a frog with a frog brain.Frog "placks"--first as a pirate, then a handsome prince. Gravett reminds us on each page that Frog is still just a small green frog (indicating he is "placking"). Then he has an idea: he will rearrange the words from the torn up pages to create a spell to become a prince. He has to go through many word combinations before he configures the right combo to become a prince.It is these cut-in-half-page combos that present such fun. I enjoyed flipping back and forth, top and bottom to get strange combinations: F + ird = Fird, or F + ewt, or Sn + ewt = Snewt, or half snake, half newt, or Rrog, or Rince, or Bince, or Prrog.Then play comes to an end. The frog is a prince and voila! there's a lovely princess--"and he was going to kiss a beautiful princess." Wait, frog, did you read the fine print? "It was magic..." because after the kiss, he becomes "just a small green frog (again)." Inside the globe he returns, a globe that is becoming hazier and hazier. Just next to it is a tiny note warning that a prince will return to his frog origin if he kisses a genuine princess. There must be a moral to this story, mustn't there? Think before you kiss. Don't let a princess take your crown away. I don't know. Surely something. Eat more salmon and sardines. Grow a brain.Or perhaps Emily Gribbit (as she calls herself on the title page) is simply giving us a fractured fairy tale. I think "Spells" is more than that. It's a book about possibility, or a warning that good things can slip away if we don't pay attention to details, or that life can change in a blink of the eye or the touch of lips, or that we shouldn't take love for granted. Gravett's books do tend to have dark undertones. Think children don't know about these? The Brothers Grimm thought they did. Gravatt continues this dark tradition, even lacing her stories with humor, as the brothers did.Try  Wolves , also by Emily Gravett/Gribbitt. It's even darker.

Emily Gravett, Spells (Simon and Schuster, 2008)I have been a huge fan of Emily Gravett's since first encountering Wolves, which I still consider one of the best books ever created for the preschool set. We in America are about a year behind in our Gravett publishing schedule, which drives me bats, and so we're just getting Spells, one of Gravett's awesome 2008 books. As with some of her other recent efforts (Meerkat Mail, Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears), this one's got a gimmick at the center of it: the bulk of the pages are split horizontally, allowing the reader to combine top and bottom halves for different comic effect. (The story involves a frog trying to find a spell to turn himself into a prince, but only after he's shredded the spellbook to make a nest for himself.) And, as usual, Gravett adds that wonderful comic touch to the end that makes all of her books so much fun to read. She still hasn't outdone the last page of Wolves, but she keeps doing this sort of thing extremely well. Gravett fans will love it, of course. Readers new to her work should probably start with Wolves, but all of her books, including this one, are gems. ****

My 2 1/2 year old loves to make up new words by replacing letters. He loves to call his Uncle Mike, "bike" and then go through the letters to come up with other names like "zike" or "tike". He does this a lot and I think the game is an incredibly good educational tool to help him understand the sounds of all the different letters.At the heart of this book is a section of split pages in which animals parts are combined to make new animals. "SN" is combined with "IRD" to make a "snird", for example. In addition, to produce this hybrid animal, there are magical words printed out each of which provide a little clue as to the animal they will produce. I don't think my son understood the connection between the magic words and the animal parts, but he does enjoy all the silly animal names and we have a great time reading it out loud.I think a lot of people don't understand the educational value of silly word play, but with the young flexible mind of a 2 year old, playing with language in nonsensical ways is one of the best ways to teach a child about phonics, and that is why a book like this is so educational, despite its outward appearance of being just a silly nonsense story.

The magic of this book is very subtle. Its illustrations and die cuts are layered on top of layers. For example, hidden black-on-black pictures shadow the pages with a phantasmagoric silliness. At the same time, Gravett has simplified the usual verbiage associated with fairy tales, leaving the simple tale of "There was once a frog who found a book." Use an open ended method of reading this book to one's child, and discover the rich charm in the pages of "Spells". Explore the few words slowly. Intone the spells with magical fervor, slowly, giving the rhymes plenty of time to work: "Into the cauldron these words cast HOAKUS CROAKUS CARROTOZABBIT STIR THREE TIMES AND OUT SPELLS..." The synapses will snap in your young listener's mind and the real magic will happen: out will pop the word RABBIT in his young brain.Die cuts, scanimation and other gimmicks are becoming so prevalent that we must evaluate a book on its success without such things. In the case of Spells, the die cuts are a big plus, added an essential element to the telling of the tale: the hapless small frog's head stuck on the body of the rabbit, the snake, etc.Gravett's critically acclaimed Orange Pear Apple Bear might have been a bit overrated, Spells is charming in every way. Her sparse text lets her evocatively subtle illustrations tell this whimsical tale.

THIS IS A LOVELY BOOK PREFERABLY SUITABLE IN MY OPINION FOR KID'S A 5 UPWARDS, AS ALL THE PAGES ARE DARK. THE STORY ITSELF IS VERY SWEET, AND THE ARTWORK STYLISH, NICE STORY READING ALSO.

My child met the author and was desperate for this book, tbh I didn't really get it. Not the best for a little one

Well packaged. Condition as described. Good value

My granddaughter of 5 loves this book. It is unusual and the illustrations are excellent.

Excellent service lovely book kids love to sit and read it