THE WIZARD, THE UGLY, AND THE BOOK OF SHAME

Bernasconi’s idiosyncratic paint-and-collage illustrations turn his take on the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” into something strange and wild. Humiliated by his ugliness, Chancery opens his master’s magic book in search of a fix—whereupon the spells all fly out. He stuffs them back in higgledy-piggledy. When his remarkably patient master discovers the hard way that they no longer work, he tells his assistant that the only way to restore them is to solve his own problem without magic, by “defeating the mirror.” Against spattered or faintly patterned backgrounds, Bernasconi scatters clipped photos, cut-out words and assembled, almost abstract figures—of which Chancery, with his square head, mottled gray-blue skin, mismatched eyes and severe underbite, is the most misshapen. Ultimately, sporting a makeover and a set of hugely over-enlarged human teeth, he discovers that smiles dispel, or at least conceal, ugly features. A worthy theme, delivered with arty, overdone exuberance. Some may enjoy it. (Picture book. 6-8)