Diary of an Accidental Witch

Honor and Perdita Cargill's Diary of an Accidental Witch is a fizzy, funny diary story for 7 year olds about a girl who ends up at witch school completely by mistake.

What happens

Bea Black and her dad have just arrived in Little Spellshire. He's a weather scientist, and he chose the town because of its funny clouds (sunshine one minute, a snowstorm the next). Bea is NOT impressed.

She's meant to be starting Year Seven at the shiny Academy with Ash, the nice boy next door. But Dad writes her name in the wrong book at the library. So instead she's heading down the forest path to the School of Extraordinary Arts, which Ash says is very, very weird.

Her first morning goes about as well as Dad's salty pancakes. She trips over a broom in the entrance hall and lands on the headmistress's cat. (Don't worry. It puffs back up again and stalks off.)

Then the headmistress hands her a wand. By lunchtime Bea has set a pile of flying textbooks on fire in Physics and been put in charge of Stan, the class frog, who looks at her with something close to despair.

And she mustn't tell a soul. Not Ash, and definitely not Dad.

It's written as Bea's diary, so you're right there with her from one disaster to the next. There are crossings-out where she changes her mind ("lost misplaced tidied my diary in the bread bin"), LOTS of capitals and plenty of little side notes. It reads the way a chatty, slightly panicky kid really talks.

The magic is the cosy, silly kind. Desks float, chairs tuck you in whether you like it or not, and the Physics teacher puts out a classroom fire by making it rain indoors. The nearest thing to a villain so far is Blair, a sporty girl who more or less calls Bea a toadbrain.

Bea is starting Year Seven, so she's a bit older than your reader might be. The diary is so light and quick that it doesn't matter. If your reader loves the idea of a secret school hidden in the woods, this is a lovely place to start.

What to read next

For another girl who can't seem to stay on her broomstick, try The Worst Witch. Mildred Hubble is always in trouble at Miss Cackle's Academy, and after only two days she's already crashed straight into the yard wall.