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    The Magician's Apprentice
    Unavailable
    The Magician's Apprentice
    Unavailable
    The Magician's Apprentice
    Ebook139 pages1 hour

    The Magician's Apprentice

    By Kate Banks and Peter Sís

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    From award winning author Kate Banks, and with pictures from Caldecott Honor illustrator Peter Sis, a magical parable for readers who ask big questions

    Baz has always dreamed about following his two older brothers out of his dusty little town, so when a stranger comes to his family's home and asks him to be a weaver's apprentice, Baz is eager to start his journey. But when he reaches the village of Kallah and starts his apprenticeship, Baz learns that his master is very cruel. And when the master trades Baz to a magician for a sword, Baz expects no better from his new owner.

    But as Baz travels with this kind-hearted and wise magician, their journey takes him across the desert, up a mountain, and into the depths of life's meaning. He learns to re-examine his beliefs about people, the world, and himself, discovering that the whole world is connected and no person can ever be owned.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateAug 7, 2012
    ISBN9780374347178
    Unavailable
    The Magician's Apprentice
    Author

    Kate Banks

    Kate Banks (1960 – 2024) wrote many books for children, among them Max’s Words, And If the Moon Could Talk, winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and The Night Worker, winner of the Charlotte Zolotow Award. She grew up in Maine, where she and her two sisters and brother spent a lot of time outdoors, and where Banks developed an early love of reading. Banks attended Wellesley College and received her master's in history at Columbia University. She lived in Rome for eight years and lived in the South of France with her husband and two sons, Peter Anton and Maximilian.

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    Reviews for The Magician's Apprentice

    3.5/5

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    • 3/5
      I found this book to be quite an odd one. I am not sure who the audience of this one would be. The writing is lyrical and almost dream-like. The pacing is very slow and not a lot happens. A young man named Baz leaves his home, travels with a stranger, is apprenticed to a cruel master, and is bought by an itinerant magician who then takes him and travels apparently randomly through the countryside teaching Baz as he goes. The characters are not so much people as they are archetypes - the wise old teacher and the young scholar. Many of the characters don't even have names unless Baz decides to name them. Philosophy is much more important in this story than action. It talks about desire, a person's viewpoint, the inter-connectedness of all things. It is a "go with the flow," "live in the moment" sort of story. It almost seems like the kind of story that I read in my high school humanities class when I read Hesse and Kierkegaard or works of Eastern Philosophy. I didn't understand them either!This book looks like a middle grade book based on the size of the book, the size of the print, and the Peter Sis illustrations. However, I don't know very many philosophical middle graders. Philosophical high school students will likely pass over it because of the way it looks. I don't know that the lyrical writing will be enough to win an audience for this one.
    • 4/5
      The title of this book was at first deceiving to me. I was expecting a fantasy of magic, about a boy who is apprenticed to a magician. Instead, the novel tells of a boy's spiritual journey in an Asian-like land. At 16, Baz leaves his family home like his brothers before him, to seek adventure and fortune. The nameless man who carries him from home on the back of his beloved horse, Melesh, is kind and gives him a cryptic message from "the birds, the trees, the wind," even his horse: "You will follow the light." He takes Baz to a weaver and leaves. "The Master" has several boys working for him, but Baz quickly learns his cruelty. He uses a whip on the boys and keeps them half-starved. Baz learns to weave well-enough, but realizes it is not his true passion or skill. He makes a friends in Dagar, a true weaver, and a little dog he names Blink. One day, Dagar becomes ill. The cruel Master takes him away and Dagar never returns. Then the Master whips Blink almost to death. Baz, realizing the dog won't recover, steals the Master's gun to end Blink's suffering, then returns the gun. The Master finds out and praises Baz for the killing. He takes him to the village to sell him as a soldier. Baz is traded to a Magician for his sword. The Magician performs simple tricks - illusions, he calls them - to earn a few coins. All he owns is a small cart he pulls behind him in his travels. Baz follows Tadis, realizing he has few other choices in this unknown land.Tadis is kind and wise, teaching Baz by example and with riddles. Baz is sometimes frustrated by these teachings, but is happy enough to follow the Magician. Over time, he begins to understand and like Tadis' ways. He meets other people, but mostly travels with Tadis, leanring the ways of the land, of his mind, of dreams and illusions. In many ways, this is a quiet story where not much seems to happen, but as Tadis always says, something is always happening. I will follow Baz again on his journey to glean more insights into the story and myself. I am grateful for Kate Banks' illuminating writing.
    • 3/5
      As sixteen-year-old Baz leaves his village for the first time, he thinks his dream of adventuring to new places and seeing the world has finally come true. But he finds himself forced to work for a cruel master who makes his laborers weave tapestries all day in the terrible heat with little to eat. Tired of his rebellion, the master sells the boy to a warrior and Baz believes his fate is sealed. But the warrior is not all that he seems. He teaches Baz that the world is full of secrets and possession is an illusion. Kate Banks' young adult novel is permeated with rich imagery of a Middle Eastern landscape, but her under-developed characters do not share the depth of her lush forests and barren deserts. The language is advanced for the recommended ages, but Peter Sis' simple pointillism illustrations confuses - is this an advanced picture book or a childish YA novel? Grades 6-8.