Review Detail

When Felina, a young witch, crash lands near Lucinda's house on Halloween, Lucinda's family, the Doons, take her in. Since Felina can't get her broom to work, she is grounded for an entire year. The father reports her to the police and manages to obtain a license to keep her, and the family proceeds to accept Felina into their family despite her witchy ways. They convince her to eat things other than black bat soup, and manage to eventually have her give up her witch hat. With the help of a twinkly and kindly grandfather, she gets her own birthday, and eventually turns into a regular-- and happy-- little girl.

This is a reprint of the 1960 (Macmillian Publishing Co., Inc.) title, but has an updated cover illustration. It is a sweet and simple tale that is reminiscent of Ruth Chew's witch books from the same era, and is a strong tale about the power of love and family acceptance. Since Glee's Chris Colfer is writing the pilot for a Disney Channel show based on this book, I expect that demand will be high.

There are some details that could have been updated-- Felina goes to a party wearing a fluffy dress, the mother and father fall into fairly rigid stereotypes-- but younger readers will probably not even notice that the license cost for having a witch for a year is only one dollar!