Diary of an Accidental Witch: Ghostly Getaway

Bea and her classmates are off on a residential to spooky Cadabra Castle. It’s sure to be a magical trip with lots to do and plenty of fun to be had…if Year 7 can just stop arguing. However, their teachers have different ideas. Miss Lupo is determined that they keep up their Potions work and they are travelling in an old orange Ordinary bus! To top it all, they have been set a series of witchy mystery challenges as Miss Sparks is sure a few team building activities will help this argumentative lot learn to work together.

Bea’s adventures started when she and her father moved to Little Spellshire and she found herself accidentally enrolled to go to the School of Extraordinary Arts. This mishap led to her attending a school for witches, but, after a somewhat exhausting and baffling start, Bea settled in well to magical life, recording her secret experiences in her diary. Now in her third term, she has started a new diary with some New Year’s resolutions.

Told in a very light-hearted style, these books make very appealing reading yet in each story Bea overcomes or solves a problem which readers themselves might encounter. In this story, as well as the on-going conflicts and rivalries with certain classmates, Bea is really worried that her father’s work (researching the bizarre weather patterns of Little Spellshire) is coming to an end and she will soon be forced to leave her new school and friends if she and her father move elsewhere. Instead of talking to him about this, she concocts a plan of action, but (as is often the case!) hasn’t thought this through, leading to on-going problems and an increasing sense of anxiety for Bea. The easiest thing to do to set her mind at rest was to actually talk to her father…which she eventually does!

This story also shows the importance of teamwork and setting aside differences. When forced to work with her nemesis, Bea needs to find a way of cooperating with Blair and the girls come to realise that this is the way to succeed. Told with much humour and ‘quirkiness’, there is no heavy moralising or preaching here- just Bea’s dawning appreciation of the fact. I love the way the teachers nudge them towards this by creating the right conditions and then sitting back and letting it happen!

Perfect for younger, reluctant (or really any!) reader, ‘Diary of an Accidental Witch: Ghostly Getaway’ is a great addition to this series. It would make a fun class read, but actually engaging with the text with it’s footnotes, corrections, annotations and fabulous illustrations by Katie Saunders make it great for curling up with independently!

Diary of an Accidental Witch: Ghostly Getaway

Perdita and Honor Cargill, illustrated by Katie Saunders

Little Tiger ISBN: 978-1788953405

Diary of an Accidental Witch: Ghostly Getaway

Perdita and Honor Cargill

Little Tiger ISBN: 978-