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Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch Strikes Again is a funny boarding-school story for 7 year olds about Mildred Hubble and a new girl who's far naughtier than she looks.
Summer has arrived at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches. Mildred has promised everyone at home that she'll really try this time. Then Miss Hardbroom hands her a new girl to look after.
Enid Nightshade is tall and quiet and keeps staring at the floor. Mildred decides she'll be no fun at all. She couldn't be more wrong!
Within two days Enid has sung SO badly out of tune in chanting (on purpose) that Mildred gets the giggles and is sent to the headmistress. Then a monkey escapes from Enid's room, and Mildred ends up dangling from her broomstick halfway up a tower trying to catch it. Guess who gets the blame?
Meanwhile Maud, Mildred's best friend, goes off in a huff about the new girl and starts hanging around with Ethel. Ethel, of all people! If your reader has ever had a friendship wobble when someone new arrived, they'll recognise that feeling straight away.
Sports Day is the best bit. Enid adds a touch of magic to the pole-vault poles, and Mildred sails clean over the bar, over the school wall and in through Miss Hardbroom's study window. She lands in the middle of somebody's tea.
After that, Miss Cackle warns that one more slip will get Mildred expelled. So you spend the last few chapters willing her through to the end of term, with Enid tempting her into trouble at every turn.
It's a short book with short chapters, which makes it lovely to read aloud or for a newly confident reader to manage alone. The teachers are as much fun as the girls. Miss Hardbroom appears out of thin air and says the most cutting things in the politest voice.
You can pick this one up on its own, but it helps to have met Mildred, Maud and the tabby cat already. If your reader is new to Miss Cackle's, the first Worst Witch book is where Mildred's first year begins, on the night before every girl is handed a kitten (and Mildred gets the odd one out).
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