Anna Elizabeth Bennett

Nine-year-old Minikin, also known as Minx, was deeply unhappy with her life as a witch's child. She hated living in her dirty unkempt home, and feared her mother, the terrible Madam Snickasnee, who was known to turn young children into potted plants. Most of all, Minx longed to go to school, and to make friends her own age. When she sneaks out of the house one day, her decision to enroll herself in school involves her in a number of adventures, leading to friendship, and eventually, to her freedom from Madam Snickasnee and the granting of her heart's desire - a true family.

Having seen it recommended in a number of places - according to the blurb on the rear cover of this 60th Anniversary Edition, it was #7 in a School Library Journal poll of the top 100 children's novels - I was eager to pick Little Witch up, particularly given my 'witchy witches' project, in which I have been looking at the depiction of witches in picture and early chapter-books. Unfortunately, although it was moderately charming, I wasn't all that impressed. The story felt rather predictable - I simply couldn't work up much interest in the main character, and never felt involved in her trials and tribulations - and was written in such a way that I felt almost as if the author were giving a report of events, rather than really making them come alive for the reader. I did like the illustrations, which had a distinctly mid-20th-century charm, and were the most magical part of the book.… (meer)