The Spell of a Story

*Winner of the Klaus Flugge Prize for Illustration 2023*

From the award-winning creator of Flooded and Lost comes a magical story about the joy of discovering a connection with books for the very first time.

*2025 CBC Librarian Favorites Winner*

This brightly illustrated adventure story is perfect for kids who claim to hate reading, as the enchanting narrative opens their eyes to a fantasy world created by words on a page.

In this spellbinding story, we meet a little girl excited for the summer vacation. No more school! However, she’s given the very unreasonable task of reading a whole book over the holidays. A whole book? but she HATES books. Luckily, her sister takes her to the library and says she has just the thing.

Slowly, the little girl is drawn into a world of adventure inside her own imagination, for the very first time. Even the grayscale world starts to fill with color as she is carried away in the story. A little fennec fox leads her to meet fairytale witches and creatures as they find ingredients to cast a special spell at the end of her book.

The little girl is dismayed to learn that this spell seemingly hasn't changed a thing. However, the little fox points out that she is completely transformed: discovering the power of her imagination has changed her forever.

This charming and engaging picture book shows children how wonderful books can really be, leaving them with a lifelong affinity for reading. Discover adventure on every page and get lost in The Spell of a Story.