A Wizard in Love

Hector is a dwarfish wizard with a head like a potato and a Dracula cape. But years of quiet misanthropy (in their shuttered house, Hector and his black cat Poison spend their days “watching TV and munching cookies”) come to a halt when a noisy neighbor moves in next door, sprucing up her home and singing as she plays the piano. Hector and Poison cook up an “evil cake” to get rid of her: “When it baked, the cake thundered and rumbled and gave off a foul odor,” writes Levert (The Princess Who Had Almost Everything ), who has even more fun as Poison takes a bite and grows leathery wings and starts to breathe fire. But Hector's plan falls to a power greater than his. Lafrance (the Exploring the Elements series) paints Hector's neighbor, Isobel, as a woman of a certain age with a figure like a well-padded clothespin doll. Towering over Hector, she is so full of love that roses sprout spontaneously all around her. Young readers will be too tickled by Hector's scheming, Poison's antics and the goings-on in Isobel's household to object to the mushy ending. Ages 4–up. (Feb.)