Trickster Sister: Probuditi! by Chris Van Allsburg

In two-time Caldecott Award-winner Chris Van Allsburg's latest, Probuditi! Calvin and best friend Rodney celebrate his birthday with tickets to the matinee show of famous magician Lomax the Magnificent. Back home, Calvin and Rodney try to while away the hours until his favorite birthday dinner by making a hypnotism machine just like the one Lomax used to make a stylishly-turned-out lady strut and peck like a chicken. Luckily, Mama has to go out and leaves in Calvin's care the perfect subject, his tattletale little sister Trudy. "None of your tricks, understand?" Mama warns as she departs.

With a spiral drawn on cardboard and erector-set parts, the hypnotism machine seems to work like, well, magic. With her eyes fixed on the whirling spiral, Calvin suggests to Trudy that she is now a dog, and Trudy's antics as an energetic puppy don't disappoint the two amateur magicians. Trudy barks at squirrels, howls, laps water from a bowl, snaps up the boys' ice cream cone in three bites, and licks Calvin's face appreciatively.

Fun's fun, but when it's time for Mama to return and make the birthday cake, Calvin and Rodney can't quite remember the magic word (probuditi!) to bring Trudy out of her spell. Panicking, the boys drag Trudy across town in a wagon to get help from Lomax, only to see him driving away from the theatre. Finally, they resort to dumping a bucket of water over Trudy's head just as Mama drives up, finding a dripping, screaming girl and an obviously guilty Calvin in the driveway.

Banished to his room Calvin sadly realizes that there'll be no spaghetti with meatballs and chocolate cake for him. Little sister Trudy dutifully brings up his birthday dinner--a peanut butter sandwich and a dill pickle.

"I turned you into a dog." Calvin started chuckling. "Had you running around on your hand and knees, barking and drooling."

Trudy waited for her brother to stop laughing... "How come I don't remember?"

"'Cause that's how it works," Calvin told her. "If you did, that'd mean you weren't hypnotized."

"Oh," said Trudy. She watched her brother chew unhappily on his peanut butter sandwich. "The spaghetti was really good," she told him. "So was the cake."

Calvin just grunted.

"Know what else I liked?" Trudy asked. "That ice cream I had this afternoon. Chocolate chip's my favorite."

Van Allsburg's nostalgic sepia-toned illustrations give the book a vintage 1950's look, while his varied angles and clear breaks between "scenes" have the signature cinemagraphic look of his Jumanji and The Polar Express. Probuditi is a wonderful example of a modern "tricking the trickster" tale which will bring forth gasps of surprised laughter with its justly satisfying surprise ending.