The Sorcerer's Apprentice

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, retold by Sally Grindley, illustrated by Thomas Taylor

Picture book for the young reader

5 out of 5 stars

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice takes the reader back into medieval times where a sorcerer living in an old stone castle hires a young boy to be his apprentice, with the promise of one day teaching the apprentice all of his magical ways. One day, the impatient apprentice decides to make some magic of his own, but when it does not go as planned, the unhappy sorcerer has to come to the rescue.

            From the incredibly detailed cartoon illustrations, to the magical language of the text on the page, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a fantasy that all children would enjoy. The opening line of the story reads, “In an old stone castle, surrounded by whispering trees and chattering crows, lives a powerful sorcerer.” If that sentence doesn’t send a shiver down your spin, the illustration definitely will. When you look at the picture, you can hear the crows chattering, the trees whispering, and fear for the little boy, the sorcerer’s apprentice, who is walking up to the dark and scary light that illuminates the old stone castle. This opening line and first two pages of illustrations are a good representation of how the rest of the story is written and illustrated. The first line is full of precise vocabulary, detailed adjectives, and emotion. Not to mention, the alliteration used with the “chattering crows”. Also, this line has music flowing out of it. The words roll right off the tongue and set the cadence pattern of the lines for the rest of the story to follow.  These attributes of music in the language, alliterations, emotion, and precise vocabulary, according to Tunnell and Jacobs, show that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a well written story. And these attributes can be found on each page of the story, in the same way. Similarly, the way that the beautifully detailed illustrations accompany the text and add extra emotion to the first page of the story, the illustrations continue to do the same throughout the rest of the book.

            As Halloween is approaching, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice fit right into the theme of this holiday season, which is of the freaky supernatural. I enjoy themes in every way, shape, and form. In my future classroom, during the month of October I could see myself reading only books that fall into the theme of Halloween. Another way that I could implement the use of this story into my classroom is by reading The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and then the next day reading Strega Nona and doing a compare and contrast activity between these two books. This activity would work wonderfully because the plot and then moral of the story are similar, but take place in different contexts. Also, these two story appeal to different types of children. For example, some students might enjoy Strega Nona more than others, but the same is true for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. This way, hopefully all of the children become intrigued by one of the two books and then the whole class has learned the lesson that is drawn from both stories. The lesson of these stories is to listen to your elders, as both the sorcerer’s apprentice and Big Anthony meddle with the magic of the elders, even when they were told not to, and it turned into a disaster. As you can see, many similarities and differences occur within these two stories, so a compare and contrast activity would be perfect to go along with the reading of Strega Nona and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.