Not Just a Witch - Softcover

Eva Ibbotson was born in Vienna, but when the Nazis came to power her family fled to England and she was sent to boarding school. She became a writer while bringing up her four children, and her bestselling novels have been published around the world. Journey to the River Sea won the Nestle Gold Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. Some of her other young fiction titles include The Secret of Platform 13, Which Witch? and The Great Ghost Rescue. Eva died peacefully in October 2010 at the age of eighty-five.

Grade 5-8-After 30 years at witch school, best friends Heckie and Dora plan to settle down in a small town, Do Good, and make the world a better place. But when they quarrel on graduation day, Heckie is left to carry on alone. She recruits a wacky bunch of helpers to form the Wellbridge Wickedness Hunters: three children, a dragworm familiar, a garden witch, a former witch beauty queen, a wizard hot-air-balloon enthusiast, and a wizard endeavoring to make a walking cheese. At first, all seems to go well. Heckie uses her power to turn humans into animals to rid the town of wicked people and supplement the animal population of the local zoo. However, her plans begin to go awry when she meets a slick furrier who wants to exploit her talents to obtain rare snow leopard pelts. Fans of Ibbotson's other humorous fantasies will be pleased to see more of the same here. The story moves at a satisfying pace and the characters provide just the right balance of silliness and sagacity, masking any moralizing with satire. The black-and-white illustrations add wit and fancy to the book. This light fantasy will not just bewitch, but will bring peals of laughter, too.
Heather Dieffenbach, Lexington Public Library, KY
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