Nothing beats a good scare at Halloween so what better than to curl up on a dark and stormy night and enjoy a beastly book by candlelight…..

1. Bella Broomstick – Halloween Havoc (by Lou Kuenzler, illustrated by Kyan Cheng)

Bella’s best friend Esme, and the rest of Merrytown, are getting ready for a wicked Halloween but Bella just can’t understand why Persons would want to dress up in scary costumes and terrify each other every year.

Although Bella refuses to take Esme back to the Magic Realm for Halloween, she does agree to take her on a broomstick ride.  As they soar through the skies, all the animals they meet seem to think they’ve lost something – a witch’s hat. With Bella’s name in it.

When the pair of best friends head out on Bella’s broomstick again on Halloween, Bella doesn’t think twice about lending her old witch’s hat to Esme.  And that is when things become beastly for the girls…..

Another brilliant story in the Bella Broomstick series with the perfect Halloween twist.  Full of the scrapes and japes you’ve come to expect from Bella books with a good helping of friendship and courage.  The slightly unlucky Bella is a great role-model for all aspiring young witches and wizards.

Click here if you’d like to read more about the Bella Broomstick books.

2. How to Catch a Witch (by Abie Longstaff)

Charlie and her family have just moved from a big city to a sleepy countryside village and Charlie isn’t happy.  The old cottage they’ve inherited gives her a strange buzzy feeling and being worried about starting a new school halfway through the school year has caused her stutter to come back.

A chance meeting with the glowing and beautiful Suzy Evans, leads Charlie on the path to discovering her true destiny.  Along with a rather irritating and mysterious girl called Cat and a strange old woman called Agatha who may or may not be a witch!

This book is actually about a lot more than just witches.  It also deals with issues such as stammering, loneliness and redundancy in a sensitive manner.  I liked the way that Charlie was in charge of finding her own happiness – she didn’t rely on anybody else to sort things out for her.

There were lots of literary  magical references woven through the book which I enjoyed trying to spot, notably Hogwarts and The Wizard of Oz.  I also loved Charlie’s use of lists to try to make sense of things and reading the snippets of the spells she got to try and cast.

Swoop into a magical read tonight!

Library Girl.

*Thank you to Scholastic for sending me these spooktacular books to review*