Michelle Harrison’s A Pinch of Magic is a foggy, sisterly adventure for 9 year olds about three girls who are not allowed to leave the island they live on.<\/p>\n
Betty Widdershins turns thirteen on Halloween. Home is the Poacher’s Pocket, the rowdiest inn on Crowstone, run by her granny, and Betty has spent weeks planning to break the biggest rule in it.<\/p>\n
She and her six year old sister Charlie are going to get on the ferry and cross to the mainland. Charlie is dressed as a witch and does not know yet.<\/p>\n
Then the fog comes down on the water, fast and freezing. Something huge bumps the boat. And when Betty looks up, Granny is standing over her, on a ferry she definitely did not board.<\/p>\n
That is the moment the book turns. Betty is practical. Betty does not believe in superstitious nonsense. Betty has just watched her grandmother do something impossible and she wants to know how.<\/p>\n
What she gets is a kitchen table, a pot of terrible sweet tea and the truth. There are three objects in the family and each one holds what Granny calls a pinch of magic. A carpet bag you turn inside out to travel. A mermaid mirror that lets Fliss talk to people who are somewhere else. And a set of nesting dolls, wrapped in brown paper, for Betty.<\/p>\n
They come with a reason the Widdershins girls cannot leave Crowstone. Granny has been keeping it from them for years.<\/p>\n
The place does so much of the work here. Mudflats and marsh grass, crows on the windowsill, jack-o’-lanterns turning the bar golden, whiskey and pipe smoke. You can smell the fish and the beer.<\/p>\n
And Betty is wonderful company because she is so cross. Not with the curse. With being the last one told.<\/p>\n
Now the caution, and it is worth reading before you hand this over. The book opens with a girl locked in a prison tower, counting scratches on a windowsill, waiting for the boat that will take her to the gallows at noon. Three people drowned on the marshes and the village blames her. She says over and over that she never meant to hurt anyone, and then she scratches a name on the wall out of pure revenge. It is short and it is bleak. The girls’ mother is dead and their father is in prison, and both come up plainly.<\/p>\n
If your child is fine with a properly dark opening and a story about sisters sticking together, this is a great one. If executions and imprisoned parents are a step too far just now, leave it a year.<\/p>\n
There is more of them in A Sprinkle of Sorcery, where a strange girl turns up at the inn asking for help and the marshes hide an island that is on no map at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michelle Harrison’s A Pinch of Magic is a foggy, sisterly adventure for 9 year olds about three girls who are not allowed to leave the island they live on. Betty Widdershins turns thirteen on Halloween. Home is the Poacher’s Pocket, the rowdiest inn on Crowstone, run by her granny, and Betty has spent weeks planning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11240,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":6712,"lr_next_read_anchor":"A Sprinkle of Sorcery","lr_seo_hook":"Three sisters, three magical objects and an island they cannot leave."},"book_tag":[1047],"age_group":[24],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[724],"class_list":["post-6687","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-magic-books","age_group-books-for-9-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-michelle-harrison"],"yoast_title":"A Pinch of Magic by Michelle Harrison | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Three sisters, three magical objects and an island they cannot leave. For ages 9+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n