witches

Review: The Lunch Witch by Deb Lucke

| Tasha

lunch witch

The Lunch Witch by Deb Lucke

What is a witch to do when no one believes in magic anymore? She has her family’s potion recipes and cauldron, but that’s about it. Then she realizes that there is one perfect job for someone who creates horrible brews – being a lunch lady! So Grunhilda becomes a lunch lady, one who scares all of the children. But Madison isn’t scared of Grunhilda despite the fact that she is the one person who knows that she is not what she seems. Madison has enough knowledge to blackmail the witch, but that’s a dangerous course even when the witch wants to help you. Grunhilda finds a kinship with Madison, but her horrible ancestors are maddened to find their magic being used for good, so they step in and cause all sorts of trouble for both Madison and Grunhilda.

Lucke’s story is a delightful mix of horrible potions, bats that don’t listen, nasty dead ancestors with too many opinions, and amazingly also two people who may just become friends through it all. Lucke creates a story around Grunhilde that offers her back story and makes her transformation to an almost-good witch believable and organic. Madison too has her own story, one that also makes the story work well and makes her own role and connection ring true.

The art of this graphic novel is gorgeously strange and wild. Each chapter leads in with a differently stained page, from oily splotches to actual tomatoes. The pages too are dark and stained, as if Grunhilda herself had been using the book in her kitchen. Against that the white of aprons and speech bubbles pops. Other subtler colors are also used and create a subtle effect against the dark page.

A funny and heartfelt story of unusual friendships created during the most unusual of times. Appropriate for ages 7-9.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen

| Tasha

beastkeeper

Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen

Sarah’s family moves all of the time, away from the cold that her mother despises.  But when her mother walks out one day, Sarah’s father falls apart.  He barely eats and never grocery shops.  It all falls to Sarah to keep them both alive.  Her father seems to be becoming less human by the day, descending into an animal with scruffy hair and yellowed teeth.  Unable to care for Sarah, he takes her to her grandparents’ home, grandparents she had been told were dead.  Left in a moldering castle in a deep woods, Sarah begins to figure out the deep curse that keeps her entire family prisoner.  Her grandmother treats her coldly, putting her to work in the gardens.  Her grandfather is trapped in a cage, fully transformed into a beast yet still able to speak to Sarah at times.  Sarah doesn’t believe in the magic at work at first but soon is forced to admit that something is happening as she witnesses it for herself.  Yet there are twists to the curse that bind her to witches, boys in the wood, and the beasts of her family, including the beast inside herself.

Hellisen beautifully converts the story of Beauty and the Beast into something quite different and extraordinary.  Her writing is as lush as the forest itself and she weaves amazing descriptions onto the pages that bring the entire book to life.  She uses this technique for both characters and the setting.  Here is her description of the castle when Sarah first sees it on page 48:

It was a single squat turret, like a jabbing finger or a lone tooth, made of mottled stone, dribbled and spattered with lichen in yellows and reds.  Furry clumps of moss clung velvety and green at the base.  Ivy grew wild, so thick in some places it distorted the shape of the tower, and sprays of leaves crowned with little blue-black berries rose over the low walls around the outskirts.  Tumbled boulders marked the faint outlines of rooms that had long since fallen.

Talk about showing and not telling!  She is a master at that, creating mood with details that linger in your mind.  This castle is no fairy tale one, or is it?

Hellisen does not set her protagonist on a simple quest either.  Sarah slowly reveals the twists and turns of the curse, binding herself closer and closer to disaster with each revelation.  Disaster waits on the other side of each breath and at times it seems to have already won.  Sarah though is up to the challenge, willing to sacrifice herself to try to prevent the curse from continuing onward in her family. 

This is a gorgeously written tale of love, betrayal, revenge and family.  Fans of retellings of classic fairy tales will find so much to adore in this fantasy novel.  Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from copy received from Henry Holt & Co.

Review: I Am a Witch’s Cat by Harriet Muncaster

| Tasha

i am a witchs cat

I Am a Witch’s Cat by Harriet Muncaster

A little girl believes that her mother is a witch and that she is her mother’s black cat.  Dressed in a cat costume, the little girl gives examples of the witchy things that her mother does each day.  She has potions in the bathroom that the little girl isn’t allowed to touch.  She buys weird things at the grocery store.  She goes magical herbs (like carrots) in her garden that she then uses to make potions in the kitchen.  She has a group of friends who come over and they cackle together.  All of these examples are shown in the pictures to be completely normal and easily explained.  But a nice little twist at the end of the book will have readers wondering if perhaps there’s some truth to her mother being a good witch!

Told entirely in first person by the unnamed little girl, this book is jaunty and playful.  It is a very positive depiction of a family of two, their interactions together glow with warmth and connection.  The dynamic between the beliefs of the little girl about her mother and the mundane truths shown in the illustrations will have children trying to figure out whether the mother is a witch or not.  It’s a simple premise for a book that lets the unique illustrations shine.

And what illustrations they are!  Muncaster has created miniature worlds out of paper, fabric and other materials and then photographed them for the illustrations.  They have a wonderful wit and dazzle to them.  At first the 3D effect is subtle enough to be missed, but once it catches your eye you will be entranced with these unique and lovely illustrations.

Filled with Halloween magic, this book is one amazing treat.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy received from HarperCollins.

Review: Thickety by J. A. White

| Tasha

thickety

The Thickety by J. A. White

Kara saw her mother killed for being a witch when she was just six years old.  Ever since then, she and her sickly little brother have been treated horribly by the village they live near.  Her father played a role in accusing her mother of witchcraft, and now he cannot function well at all, spending his days writing the same thing over and over again in a notebook.  So Kara at age 12 takes care of her brother and tries to keep their small farm functioning and her family fed.  The entire village lives in fear of the Thickety, a deep woods nearby.  So when a strange crow leads Kara deep into the woods right to the heart of the Thickety, she almost doesn’t follow.  There she discovers a book of spells that seems to promise great power, a book that will mark Kara as a witch in everyone’s eyes.  What is a witch’s daughter to do?

White creates a book that is just as dark and tangled as the Thickety itself.  Her writing is a treat to read, focused on creating characters that are complicated in their motivations in a world that is lush and vivid.  She doesn’t shirk away from truly frightening scenes in the book, including the opening scene of the mother’s death and Kara being accused as a small child of witchcraft.  That scene alone warns you of the horrors to come, horrors that are scary in a deep, dark way but ones that are also appropriate for the middle grade readers.

Kara is a strong heroine.  She is an outsider from a young age, shunned by her peers, beloved by her younger brother.  Even the adults in the community have abandoned their family, leaving them to fend for themselves.  Speaking of the community, it is another strength in this novel, a tight-knit and fanatical community on an isolated island that shuns magic.  White manages to stay away from any sort of Salem-type setting while still maintaining clear links to that puritanical rage. 

Well written with a strong protagonist and impressive world building, this dark fantasy is ideal for middle grade readers.  Appropriate for ages 11-13.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Half Bad by Sally Green

| Tasha

half bad

Half Bad by Sally Green

I always approach fantasies that are supposed to be the “Next Big Thing” with a lot of caution.  But this one is a wonderful surprise.  Nathan lives in a cage outside of the house where the woman paid to keep him lives.  He is let out of his shackles at dawn, forced to run for miles, train in combat, and kept close to home by wristbands filled with acid that will detonate if he goes too far.  Nathan is a witch.  But that is not why he is in a cage.  He is in a cage because he is a mix of white witch and black witch and worse, he is the son of the most notorious black witch of all time.  The white witches who keep Nathan imprisoned are training him to kill his father.  Through a series of flashbacks, Nathan’s childhood and the abuse he suffers from the white witches is exposed.  The question quickly becomes who the bad guys really are and how Nathan can survive in a world where no one trusts half of him.

Set in an alternative England where witches are real and in a constant battle for power, Nathan is trapped not just in a cage but also in between the two powerful factions.  The writing here is wonderfully clean and clear, even when it turns to violence which it does often.  Thanks to the quality of the writing, the moral questions shine on the page, clearly linking this witch world to the various moral questions at play in our own world.  Yet this does not become overbearing at all, since the world is compellingly built.

The characters are also well done.  While the “white” and “black” labels designate the factions, the question of good and evil goes much deeper.  Nathan is an exceptional protagonist.  He is complex and both in his character and the world, nothing is simple.  As he learns the truth about his parents, his family and himself, his reactions are honest, violent and superbly done.

This book is worthy of all of the fanfare it has received, but the reason to read it is to enter the violent world of witches where everyone is at least half bad.  Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from copy received from Viking.

Review: The Misadventures of Salem Hyde by Frank Cammuso

| Tasha

misadventures of salem hyde

The Misadventures of Salem Hyde: Spelling Trouble by Frank Cammuso

This is the first book in an upcoming graphic novel series for children in elementary school.  Salem Hyde is a witch, so sometimes she misunderstands what the other kids at school are talking about.  She insists she is a good speller and goes on to prove it by casting a spell.  Unfortunately, the spell turned a teacher into an enormous dinosaur.  After that, Salem’s family decide that she needs an animal companion.  Salem thinks a unicorn would be perfect, but she gets a cat instead: a cat named Percival J. Whamsford III.  As his name indicates, he has a very different personality than Salem.  Let the fun begin!

Done in black and white illustrations, this graphic novel has the feel of a traditional comic strip rather than a graphic novel.  That is not a complaint, in fact I enjoyed the more Calvin and Hobbes feel to the book with moments that stood on their own and the whole telling a full story.  Cammuso’s art has a traditional vibe to it, one that will have mass appeal.  The humor is slick, funny and age appropriate offering silly moments galore.

A strong beginning to a new series, Salem Hyde should be welcome at all libraries as long as she doesn’t try to “spell.”  Appropriate for ages 7-9.

Reviewed from ARC received from Amulet Books.

Book Review: Spellbound by Jacqueline West

| Tasha

spellbound

Spellbound by Jacqueline West

Released July 11, 2011.

This second book in The Books of Elsewhere series is just as magical as the first.  Olive is still searching for a way to save Morton, the boy trapped inside a painting.  Now that the spectacles are broken, Olive must rely on the permission of one of the three cats to enter the paintings.  But nothing she tries is working.  So when her new neighbor, Rutherford, mentions that there may be a spellbook left by the McMartins, Olive immediately begins searching.  When she finds it though, she may not be ready for what it brings with it.  Plenty of adventure, magic and surprises await the reader.

West writes with an ease, a comfort that makes the book read quickly.  At the same time, she does use imagery very well, especially when describing characters.  Olive continues to be a great protagonist.  She is far from perfect, allowing her pride to get her into further scrapes in this book.  I am a fan of a flawed protagonist and Olive manages to be human and relatable throughout the novel.

As Olive spends more time outside the house, the neighborhood begins to come to life in this book much more completely than in the previous novel.  Olive’s parents are also more involved in this second book, though they do continue to leave Olive alone often, much to the delight of the storyline.

This is a charmer of a series filled with witches, magic, cats, and danger.  Fans of the first novel in the series will be clamoring for this second one.  A perfect summer read for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from ARC received from Dial Books.

Chime: Breathtakingly Beautiful

| Tasha

chime

Chime by Franny Billingsley

Released on March 17, 2011.

Briony believes that she is the source of her family’s troubles.  She blames herself for her stepmother’s death and for her twin sister’s brain damage.  Her only solace is the swamp, where she can see and speak with the Old Ones.  But she can tell no one about her gift because it means that she is a witch, and witches in her village are hanged.  Everything changes when funny, gallant Eldric comes to live with them.  He is golden, lion-like and best of all, he appreciates Briony for just being herself.  However, Briony is filled with guilt and secrets that may be the death of her.  Unknown to her though, there are further secrets that need to be revealed, to everyone.

The writing here is so lush, so inventive, so layered that its language creates a unique world all on its own.  Billingsley uses unique metaphors that are arrestingly descriptive.  In fact, the writing is so lovely that my book is marked with many small bookmarks for amazing passages.  Wonderfully, the character of Briony also plays with language and words, using them as a game, a tool and a weapon.  It is this layering of imagery and wordplay that makes the reading of the book such a special one.

Right from the beginning, readers will know that something is amiss with Briony’s version of the events.  One wonders if the Old Ones are actually real, emerges confused by the relationship of the stepmother with her stepdaughters, examines the events of the library fire, and tries to follow the breadcrumb trail of details to figure out this puzzle of a book.  Briony is a great example of an unreliable narrator, leading readers through past events and present events with her own personal lens.  Delightfully, readers will struggle to remove the vividness of Briony’s perspective and view the world without it. 

Highly recommended, this is a book that mature teen readers will enjoy thanks to its blend of fantasy, romance and mystery.  My hope is that we see it winning some awards when award season rolls around.  It is definitely a winner of a read for me.  Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from copy received from Dial Books.

Broom, Zoom!

| Tasha

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Broom, Zoom! by Caron Lee Cohen, illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier

What is to be done when Little Witch and Little Monster both need to use one broom at the same time?  Little Witch notices the full moon and heads inside for the broom.  Little Monster needs to use it right then.  Little Witch still wants the broom, but when Little Monster shows her the mess, she lets him use it first.  She even helps him clean things up.  Now it’s Little Witch’s turn to use the broom to fly in the sky.  She invites Little Monster to fly with her, though he’s not really sure he wants to fly at all.

Told in very brief text that is entirely conversation, this book is a winner for young children. Spare and minimal, the text still manages to tell a clear story about sharing and taking turns.  Yet it never becomes didactic at all.  Ruzzier’s illustrations are bright, clear and vibrantly colored.  There is no white space here, just a saturated palette that makes for a compelling visual.

Highly recommended, this is a very sweet Halloween story that is sure to appeal to toddlers who are looking for monsters and witches with no scare.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from book received from Simon & Schuster.