The Sorcerer's Apprentice

by Sally Grindley

Every day, the sorcerer's apprentice dreams of becoming a magician himself. When the sorcerer leaves the castle for a day, the apprentice decides to practise some spells. But things start going horribly wrong when his magic gets out of control.

Genres: Picture Books, Fantasy

32 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2001

About the author

I came into children's books originally as Editorial Director of a nationwide children's book club, though I had written and directed a children's play while a student at Sussex University, which was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe. I wrote my first two children's picture books in 1984 and was lucky enough that Anthony Browne wanted to illustrate the second - Knock Knock Who's There? It was published in 1985, is still going strong today and is one of my most successful.

Shhh! was published in 1991 and has known great success in France/Belgium in particular (close on 300,000 copies sold). It's success in the UK - it won the Children's Book Award - was hampered by the liquidation of its original publisher.

I became a full-time author in 1995 and now have some 150+ titles published, the most recent being L'Histoire du Soir in France, Belgium and Italy.

Feather Wars, published in 2003, was my first sortie into young fiction and was followed by the very successful Spilled Water, which has been published in some ten different languages and is very popular in schools as a class reader. It won the Nestle Smarties Gold Award (and I wound up being a 'Pointless' answer on the back of it!) Broken Glass came next and was a Sunday Times Book of the Week.

I'm currently working on picture books again and have plans to illustrate one of my own in the not too distant future - watch this space!

Reviews

[Lucy Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an entertaining story, that could be used to encourage children's use of imagination. Children could write or draw about their own made-up spell and what it would do, and they could also write about what might happen if the spell goes wrong.

[Drew Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once there was a powerful sorcerer who kept an eager young apprentice. The apprentice did all the chores and helped his master with many menial tasks, but he wanted to be entrusted to learn and practice real magic. One day when the sorcerer leaves the apprentice in charge to visit a neighboring land, the boy decides to take advantage of his master's absence and try some magic of his very own. But the boy may not be quite prepared for the magic he unleashes.

This is another in my read-through of source material for Disney movies (along with Hoffmann's Nutcracker , this is the closest I could think of for Fantasia, ha ha). This isn't the actual source material for this story, but it's a retelling based on the poem by Goethe, which was used directly as inspiration for Dukas's symphony piece. It's a fun story that young readers/viewers will find surprisingly relatable. The young apprentice is mischievous but good, and there's a morality tale there too, with themes of choice and consequence. The illustrations (by the illustrator of the UK edition of the Harry Potter books) are whimsical and colorful and a lot of fun to look at.

Basically imagine the story you know from Fantasia starring Mickey Mouse, swap the title character with a young redhead, and this is what you get. The brooms even bear a striking resemblance to Disney's (which always were so spooky to me as a kid for some reason... I think because they had no faces). It's a fun story, and the illustrations were exciting and colorful, and overall it was a fun retelling of Goethe's poem. Expect to hear in your mind Dukas's famous melody hopping along with the brooms and their buckets of water.

[TinaNoir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Young sorcerer's apprentice is upset by the fact that it is taking so long for his master to allow him to do magic. So when his master goes away for the day leaving him with a tedious task, young apprentice decides to raid the books and try his hand at magic to take care of the boring job. But things get out of hand.

Cute book. The pictures very colorful and bright and use the whole page (the text of the story is placed in a blank spot in the picture). There is a definite nod to Harry Potter in the pictures, imo. The Wizard looks like Dumbledore (although don't they all? maybe Gandalf is the primary phenotype here). But the Apprentice is a definite Ronald Weasley look-alike with his bright red hair, scarf and orange/red sweater.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Basically, this book is a retelling of the famous Disney's Fantasia (you know the ones with all the brooms). This story was the perfect length to read to kids, had wonderful illustrations and I really enjoyed the story. It teaches the important lesson of what can happen if you break the rules and try to cut corners. If my son grows up to be anything like my husband, then this will be an important book to read to him.

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 1 out of 5]

Much too touchy-feely, both in pictures and story.

[Tori Fullmer]

Picture book. Fun retelling of a classic tale. A young apprentice gets impatient to start his magical journey, only to find that magic is much harder to control than it looks.

[Reidun Bures · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good for teaching prediction

[Barbara Band]

Excellent retelling for younger children.