A Witch Alone

James Nicol's A Witch Alone is a cosy, magical adventure for 9 year olds about a young witch who ends up covering the king in slime.

What happens

Arianwyn is a newly qualified witch, and after a summer of trouble in Lull, the little town she looks after, she's on holiday in the capital. She's staying with her grandmother in Kingsport, along with her best friend Salle. There's hot chocolate among the shelves of Grandmother's bookshop, a royal parade to watch, and Salle has a whole string of acting auditions.

Then a flock of winged grippets bursts out of the sky over the parade. They're cat-sized spirit creatures with bat wings and lots of grabby little hands. They snatch hats, flags and ice creams, and then they start snatching the king's guards.

Arianwyn dives in with her spell orbs, saves the day (mostly) and splatters a poor man trapped under a carriage in purple slime. He turns out to be the king! By the next morning she's been summoned by the High Elder, and a very important job is heading her way.

The best thing about Arianwyn is how ordinary she is. She blushes, she's late, and she's convinced she'll go down in history as "the witch who slimed the king". When Salle doesn't get a single part, Arianwyn stands beside her in the rain for as long as it takes. It's such a kind little scene.

Her old rival Gimma is back too, and she's being sent to Lull to retrain (Arianwyn is thrilled, obviously). At the parade Gimma is even nastier than usual, and something about her doesn't seem quite right.

The world has newsreels at the cinema, motorcars and typewriters, and there's a war going on far away in the north, where Arianwyn's dad is a soldier. It stays in the background, but a newsreel does show a wounded soldier being carried on a stretcher.

If you've got a reader who likes their magic with hot chocolate and good friends, but still wants proper spells and scary spirits, this fits nicely.

What to read next

This one carries on Arianwyn's story. If they'd rather start at the very beginning, The Apprentice Witch opens on the day of her witch's evaluation, with Gimma sniggering in the queue.