Read Stargirl Academy 2 – Madison’s Starry Spell free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Madison's Starry Spell by Vivian French is a magic school story for 7 year olds about a girl whose big sister has turned horrible.
Izzy used to be lovely. They'd curl up on the sofa together and go shopping and come home with armfuls of rubbish they both adored. Since Izzy started at her new school, none of that happens any more.
It all boils over on the bus. Izzy won't say hello. Madison, who is several kinds of annoyed about this, announces her sister's real name to everybody on board. The row that follows involves hair pulling, an emptied school bag and a slammed bedroom door.
Sitting beside Izzy on that bus is Di. Di is tall and friendly. She pinches Madison's cheek and calls her cutie, she has a sad secret about her poorly mum, and she needs Izzy's help with her homework every single day. She will not take no for an answer.
Madison narrates all of this and she is excellent company. She's cross, she's honest about being cross, and she owns up to her share of the blame (well, maybe just a teeny weeny bit of it). Her descriptions of the Academy are a treat too. It floats along on a cloud, nobody has ever seen all its rooms, and however long you spend up there you get home at the exact moment you left.
Why she's at a magic school at all is the fun of the series. Fairy Mary McBee is training the girls up as modern fairy godmothers, and they earn a star for each mission that works. This one is Madison's to lead.
What lifts it above a straightforward magic story is what the spell turns up. Izzy isn't being horrible for nothing, and plenty of children will work out the shape of it before Madison does. That's handled gently, and it lands.
This is the second book, and Madison explains everything a newcomer needs as she goes, but the first is in the library if your reader would rather start there. That's Lily's Shimmering Spell, where a girl living with a great-aunt called Acidity spills a cup of tea and then spots a castle made of cloud drifting along the high street.
A library hand-picked by an English teacher, delivered through a calm, ad-free app. If your child already loves reading, we keep up.
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