Heidi Heckelbeck 18 – Heidi Heckelbeck and the Big Mix-Up

Heidi Heckelbeck and the Big Mix-Up by Wanda Coven is a short school story for 6 year olds about a playground rumour and the friendship it wrecks.

What happens

It's the eighteenth Heidi book and it begins with a jumper.

Heidi loves her new one. Light grey, pink buttons, a little embroidered mouse sitting in a teacup. She gets to school and Lucy is wearing exactly the same jumper.

The two of them think this is marvellous. Melanie Maplethorpe, who is nobody's favourite, does not.

By the next morning there's a rumour going round the school that Lucy has head lice. Children scatter in the corridor. Some of them start scratching. Lucy cries and hides in the nurse's office, and when Heidi finally finds her in the library tree house she learns two things at once. The rumour was true, years ago, before Heidi moved to the town. And Lucy only ever told one person.

What Lucy decides to do about that is tell everybody a secret of Bruce's, which makes things a great deal worse and leaves Heidi in the middle, with Bruce on the phone in one ear and a furious Lucy at the front door.

Heidi is a witch, by the way, though it's the lightest of touches. She gets her Book of Spells out from under the bed and mixes a Kindness Charm from four conversation hearts, a clothes peg, three tablespoons of strawberry jam and a glob of glue. The charm lasts one day. Guess who isn't at school that day?

The writing is built for a reader just getting going on their own. Short sentences, shorter chapters, sound words sitting on their own lines, and Heidi shouting in CAPITALS whenever she's cross, which helps a new reader hear her.

The rumour is nasty and the book doesn't soften it. Lucy sobs, the class gossips all morning, and nobody much steps in. A child who has been talked about in the playground may recognise it rather too well. Which is also, of course, exactly why it might be the right book for them.

What to read next

If they want the story behind the sparkly lollipop pen Heidi mentions here, Heidi Heckelbeck Is Not a Thief is the one where that pen goes missing and Heidi gets the blame.