ALA Booklist

Part trickster tale, part sorcerer's apprentice story, this picture book about Anansi the Spider is loosely based on the West African story The Magic Hoe. Anansi steals a magic stick that obeys the spider's orders to clear up the yard, paint his house, and water his garden. Unfortunately, Anansi forgets how to stop the stick, the magic gets out of control, and the world is transformed. It's a long way from the original tale, but Kimmel tells it with cheerful energy, and Stevens' chaotic mixed-media illustrations, with lots of bright pink and green, show Anansi's friends and neighbors--warthog, lion, hyena, zebra, and, in one picture, Kimmel and Stevens--caught up in the mess. The slapstick of the trickster out-tricked is a lot of fun, and preschoolers will want to join in the rhythmic chant, Hocus pocus, Magic Stick . . . .

Horn Book

Anansi the spider steals Hyena's magic stick to help with his housework, but when Anansi falls asleep, the stick overwaters the garden, creating a flood that washes all the neighboring animals away. This retelling of a Liberian tale has a storyteller's voice and a sprightly pace. In general, the animated illustrations enhance this story, but the gratuitous appearance of Stevens and Kimmel in one spread is jarring.

Kirkus Reviews

Anansi the Trickster meets the Sorcerer's Apprentice in this story loosely based on a Liberian folktale. While the other animals are busy tending their gardens and cleaning their homes, Anansi is sleeping. But when they tease him for being lazy, he says he is hard at work thinking and will have to find a new place to sleep, that is to think, for all the noise they are making. What he finds is Hyena's house, which is always neat and tidy, no matter how Hyena sleeps away the day. Spying on him, Anansi sees Hyena recite some magic words to a stick, which then does his chores for him. The sly spider decides that this stick could help keep his neighbors from laughing at him for his poor housekeeping. All goes well for a time until he decides to have the stick tend his garden. When he falls asleep, the overzealous stick is watering the garden. Without Anansi to stop it, the stick's watering goes from a trickle, to a flood, to a river, in which all the animals are swept away. Unable to remember the magic words, Anansi loses the stick to Hyena and must go back to thinking up new tricks. Children will delight in Anansi's escapades as he annoys his neighbors and learns how to control the stick. Kimmel and Stevens make a good team, with the text fonts echoing the action of the story and the illustrations bringing Anansi and all his antics to life. This is their fourth Anansi collaboration ( Anansi and the Talking Melon , 1996, etc.); has the tricky spider learned his lesson this time? Let's hope not—his stories are too amusing. (Picture book. 4-8)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In Anansi and the Magic Stick by Eric A. Kimmel, illus. by Janet Stevens, the arachnid goes too far. Anansi steals the napping Hyena's magic housekeeping stick to water his garden. Unattended, the water floods the town. Stevens's comic creatures with their surprised expressions add kid appeal. ( Sept.)

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 3-One fine day finds all of the animals working, working, working, except for Anansi, who would much rather lounge and think than work, even though his house and garden are going to ruin. When he notices that Hyena has a magic stick to do all of his chores, he steals it. "Hocus-pocus, Magic Stick./Plant and water./Quick, quick, quick!" That part works well enough, but when the trickster falls asleep, the stick just keeps watering, watering, watering, until his garden turns into a mighty river and then a lake. When he wakes up, he can't remember the magic words that will stop the stick. Fortunately, Hyena floats and saves the day, but does that teach the spider a lesson? Of course not, and the story ends as he is "planning new tricks, which is just what Anansi does best." This tale has a more traditional ring to it than Kimmel and Stevens's Anansi and the Talking Melon (Holiday, 1994), but whimsical illustrations add a modern-day appearance. The stick waters with an assortment of up-to-date hoses, watering cans, and a circular sprinkler, and the characters include a warthog in a bathing cap, a hare wearing water wings, and caricatures of the author in a dinosaur tube and the illustrator clutching a brush in her teeth. The art has a softer focus than in Talking Melon but the same bright colors fill the pages, and the whole adds up to an enjoyable offering that is clever, funny, surprising, and traditional all at once.-Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, PA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.