Presto Change-o!

What a great title!  Presto Change-o: a book of animal magic by Edouard Manceau is a fun, interactive book for the primary grades.

This is an oversized board book that presents an initial image that can be manipulated with a few turns of various flaps to become an animal.  For example, a black pot (think caldron) over a fire bubbles as it cooks a stew. By swinging the flap over, the pot becomes the top part of the head of a raccoon with a bandit face peering out at us.  Two pieces of wood (part of the fire) turn up and the raccoon has arms and paws.  The accompanying text on the preceding page states’ POT’ with several rhyming lines  that almost sound like a spell, playing into the idea of a magical transformation that ends with our RACCOON friend appearing. (See the cover above.)

The text itself may be a little challenging for the youngest children but the rotating flaps will keep them engaged.  The bright colours and fairly simple, stylized illustrations have an unassuming charm that is appealing.  The first and last words are bold and easily read by earlier readers with the other text read by an older reader.  Great for playing a game of prediction, “Presto change-o! What will this become?”

This may be a book to get kids to model their own art work, coming up with two different things and figuring out how to get one object to transform into the other with just a few flaps.