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GLENDA by Janice May Udry Kirkus Star

GLENDA

By

Pub Date: April 9th, 1969
Publisher: Harper & Row

Glenda the witch going to school as a little girl is the most pregnant impersonation since Lyn Tornabene passed as a teenager. There's the problem of arriving alone on the first day (""That's right,"" Glenda agrees quickly, ""my mother works""), of producing P.T.A. cookies (purple and green and uneaten, unbeknownst to Glenda) and a pet for Bring-a-Pet Week (her familiar, Kazbo the talking crow, refuses to open his mouth). But Glenda's not content just to get by, she wants to get ahead of everyone else, and since she can't work magic in the classroom she resorts to malicious mischief: when Alice's picture comes out prettier, Glenda spills paint on her dress; when Marcia and Karen laugh at her, she tells each lies about the other to break up their friendship. And so it goes until ""something in Glenda's face"" makes Marcia think of the word witch... but by then it's winter and wet and cold, and Glenda, satisfied, agrees to Kazbo's suggestion that they go south. After all, she ""can be anything (she wants) to be."" ""But you'll always be a witch at heart,"" says Kazbo admiringly. For kids, it's a crafty slant on the way things are and a string of funny, funny face-offs. Glenda will get them every witch way.