Holly Grant’s The Witch’s Glass is a darkly funny fantasy for 10 year olds about a girl who finally turns into a bat and finds she can’t fly.<\/p>\n
Anastasia McCrumpet always thought she was completely ordinary. She isn’t. She’s half Morfo, one of the shape-shifting folk who live in a secret underground town called Nowhere Special. She’s also, it turns out, a princess.<\/p>\n
This book picks up a few months after the Dreadfuls’ first adventure. Anastasia now lives in a palace on an underground lagoon and goes to school by gondola. Her first morph goes about as badly as it possibly could. She wakes up a bat, can’t get off the floor, and turns back into a girl with a big bushy moustache (it falls out by teatime, apparently).<\/p>\n
Her dad is still missing. The one person who could find him is her grandpa Nicodemus, who’s trapped in a magic chest. And the only thing that can open that chest is a silver hammer, sealed inside a glass cabinet in an old wizard’s secret study.<\/p>\n
So Anastasia and her friends start sneaking off during school rowing lessons to work on it. There’s Ollie with his secret stash of toffee bars, his brother Quentin, and Gus, a gorgon boy with snakes for hair under his school wig.<\/p>\n
What makes it so much fun is the voice telling the story. It talks straight to “dear Reader”, warns you never to get into a pink station wagon and explains the long words with a wink. There are brilliant made-up details everywhere, like a headmistress who gives detention to any pupil who dies during school hours.<\/p>\n
There’s a dark streak under the jokes, though. A secret society called CRUD kidnaps children like Anastasia and wants them gone for good, and the narrator calls one kidnapper a murderess. Gus also tells his friends, in just a few lines, that his grandmother was burned at the stake long ago.<\/p>\n
For most 10 year olds that will sit comfortably inside the silliness. A more sensitive reader might want to know it’s coming.<\/p>\n
If your reader likes a narrator who’s in on the joke, they’ll feel right at home here.<\/p>\n
The story follows straight on from The League of Beastly Dreadfuls, so start there if you can. That’s where Anastasia’s very ordinary life ends with a funeral for her dad’s Venus flytrap and a ride in the wrong car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Holly Grant’s The Witch’s Glass is a darkly funny fantasy for 10 year olds about a girl who finally turns into a bat and finds she can’t fly. Anastasia McCrumpet always thought she was completely ordinary. She isn’t. She’s half Morfo, one of the shape-shifting folk who live in a secret underground town called Nowhere […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12124,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9184,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The League of Beastly Dreadfuls","lr_seo_hook":"Anastasia finally turns into a bat, and then finds she can't fly."},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[29],"book_type":[1048],"book_author":[388],"class_list":["post-9528","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-fantasy-books","age_group-books-for-10-year-olds","book_type-free","book_author-holly-grant"],"yoast_title":"The Witch’s Glass by Holly Grant | Read free on Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Anastasia finally turns into a bat, and then finds she can't fly. For ages 10+. Read this book free in the Little Reads app. 3,000+ books.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n