The Secrets of Droon Special Edition 2 – Wizard or Witch?

This Droon story from Tony Abbott is a fantasy adventure for 7 year olds, built around the one question Princess Keeah is scared to ask herself, Wizard or Witch?

What happens

Keeah tells this one herself, in the purple Wizardbook her parents gave her the night before. She wants to get every word of it right. Then everything goes wrong at once.

She wakes up to shouting in the palace. The sorcerer Lord Sparr is standing in the throne room. Her mum and dad are fast asleep inside a crystal box. And Sparr says it's all thanks to her. She opened the city gates for him. She handed over the jewel he's been hunting for ages.

Keeah's sure she didn't. But then her sparks come out red instead of blue, and she accidentally blasts her friend Max the spider troll right out over the sea. Is she turning into a witch, like her aunt did?

(Poor Max. He turns up again soon, hiding in a barrel on an enemy ship, and he gives the book some of its funniest moments.)

So Keeah freezes the whole city with a halting spell. That buys her twelve hours. She calls for Eric, Julie and Neal, her friends from our world, and they borrow Sparr's own car to find out what's really going on.

The car is brilliant. It's long and yellow with eight fat tyres, and it stretches to make room for every new friend who jumps in. Press the right button and it flies. Press the other one and it floats!

There's a lot of rushing about. Monkeys chase wingwolves out of their forest by pelting them with nuts. Three hag dragons turn up hungry. A forgetful little creature in a floppy hat keeps popping up with half a message. And Neal gets soaked so many times it becomes a running joke.

Under all the fun there's a real worry, though. Keeah keeps hearing strange words in her head, and scary creatures start doing what she tells them. Your reader will be wondering right along with her whether she's the hero of this story or the reason for it.

It isn't the place to start. Keeah and her friends have clearly had lots of adventures in Droon before this one, and the book talks about them as if you know.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, go back to The Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet, where Eric, Julie and Neal are meant to be clearing out Eric's basement and find a staircase under the stairs instead.