Another intriguing, memorable adventure.
In this third series entry, Betty Widdershins and her sisters move to a peculiar village shrouded in witchcraft.
As 7-year-old Charlie, 13-year-old Betty, and 17-year-old Fliss move with Father and Granny from Crowstone to Pendlewick, they are filled with hope only to find their dilapidated new home, Blackbird Cottage, resembles a witch’s house. Warned to not talk about magic, they nevertheless keep encountering stories of witches in Pendlewick. A secret room in their cottage reveals the portrait and diary of Ivy, a girl who lived there but vanished two years ago after weird happenings made it appear she was a witch. After Miss Webb, a suspicious old woman, seems to curse her, Fliss begins to act dazed and bewitched. Suspecting that what happened to Ivy may now be happening to Fliss, Betty and Charlie spy on Miss Webb and are shocked to discover that there may be more to her story than they realized. Meanwhile, other elements in Pendlewick surreptitiously pursue Fliss for their own nefarious purposes while duping the villagers. Aided by Charlie, Betty must rely on her wits and a pinch of her own magic to untangle an insidious web of spells, leading them through treacherous Tick Tock Forest and back to Crowstone as they try to save their sister. Bizarre occurrences, unexpected revelations, and the overall dark, brooding atmosphere of isolation, suspense, and duplicity effectively reinforce the dominant witchcraft theme. Main characters read as White.
Another intriguing, memorable adventure. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-358-68233-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
Highly amusing.
The incompetent parents from The Willoughbys (2008) find themselves thawed by global warming.
Henry and Frances haven’t aged since the accident that buried them in snow and froze them for 30 years in the Swiss Alps. Their Rip van Winkle–ish return is archly comedic, with the pair, a medical miracle, realizing (at last!) how much they’ve lost and how baffled they are now. Meanwhile, their eldest son, Tim, is grown and in charge of his adoptive father’s candy empire, now threatened with destitution by a congressional ban on candy (opposed by an unnamed Bernie Sanders). He is father to 11-year-old Richie, who employs ad-speak whenever he talks about his newest toys, like a remote-controlled car (“The iconic Lamborghini bull adorns the hubcaps and hood”). But Richie envies Winston Poore, the very poor boy next door, who has a toy car carved for him by his itinerant encyclopedia-salesman father. Winston and his sister, Winifred, plan to earn money for essentials by offering their services as companions to lonely Richie while their mother dabbles, spectacularly unsuccessfully, in running a B&B. Lowry’s exaggerated characters and breezy, unlikely plot are highly entertaining. She offers humorous commentary both via footnotes advising readers of odd facts related to the narrative and via Henry and Frances’ reentry challenges. The threads of the story, with various tales of parents gone missing, fortunes lost or never found, and good luck in the end, are gathered most satisfactorily and warmheartedly.
Highly amusing. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-42389-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...
At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.
Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1975
ISBN: 0312369816
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1975
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