A Most Magical Girl

Karen Foxlee's A Most Magical Girl is a spooky, sparkling fantasy for 9 year olds about a very proper young lady who discovers she comes from a family of witches.

What happens

Annabel Grey has been brought up to smile politely whatever happens. She speaks French, knows every river in Europe and follows the rules in Miss Finch's little blue book. Then her mother suddenly goes abroad and sends her to two great-aunts she's never heard of.

They run a magic shop on a mean, smoky London street. And Great-Aunt Henrietta soon tells her that her father wasn't a sea captain at all. He was a magician.

Annabel has a secret too. She sees things in water.

Meanwhile a crooked wizard called Mr Angel has built a machine that feeds on sad and lost things. By full moon he means to have an army of shadow creatures. It's up to Annabel and a wild girl called Kitty to go down into the world under London after a very important wand.

Kitty is wonderful. She sleeps in a different corner of the city every night, listens to the trees and breathes out little lights she calls heart lights. She and Annabel couldn't be more different, and watching them size each other up is a real treat.

There's lots of humour too. Annabel tries to swoon so that her aunt will be sorry. It doesn't work. And Henrietta turns into a crow to deliver a parcel.

Be ready for the prologue, because it's properly creepy. Mr Angel feeds his machine with flowers stolen from a new grave, and he turns his butler into a pile of dust. There are shadowy, clawed creatures and a vision of a small coffin, too.

If your reader loves a shiver, that's all part of the fun. For a child who's easily frightened at night, it might be one to read together.

What to read next

If they love a girl with a secret, Karen Foxlee's Dragon Skin is about a girl who finds a half-dead little dragon at a waterhole and has to save it.