Rating: ★★★★★
Audience: MG Fantasy
Length: 352 pages
Author: Tiffany McDaniel
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: September 24th, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

For younger fans of Witchlings and Eva Evergreen comes a light-hearted and whimsical middle grade fantasy about a young girl who must save her witch aunt from an uncommonly voracious hat.Where dragons take flight, through the dark of the night. Where the fire ignites, you will find the light. Aunt Cauldroneyes is always looking into cauldrons. She’s found everything from giggling moons to troll nose rings, but when she looks inside a purple cauldron one stormy night, she finds a girl with blue freckles. The old witch raises the girl and names her Spella. They live in Hungry Snout Forest in a crooked house with doors enchanted to smell like chocolate. In the attic full of floating fabric and biting buttons, Aunt Cauldroneyes teaches Spella how to make magical hats for creatures like unicorns and dragons, giants and goblins. When Spella turns eight, she receives an invitation to Dragon’s Knob, a school for wand witchery and wizardry. But on the very night Spella is set to leave, a stranger appears with a growling hat that swallows Aunt Cauldroneyes and steals her away! To rescue her aunt, Spella must go up into a sky full of dragons and to her new school. With protesters outside the gates threatening the school’s academic freedom and a deepening mystery within the walls, Spella and her new friend Tolden are thrust into the mystery of her aunt’s disappearance and a long-buried secret hidden somewhere in the school.

Thank you Tiffany McDaniel for the gifted copy and Simon Audio for the ALC.

A SWEET GEM.

I absolutely adored this book. It had all of the things I kind of look out for when reading middle grade. It felt like a book I could read to my little’s and that we could all enjoy together and I loved that vibe the most.

The world is whimsical and FULL of magical creatures. I liked the little footnotes explaining each one. It better builds the world and all of the different aspects to the plot. I loved the general theme of appreciating and taking care of nature. It’s playful and imaginative.

I am intrigued by the beginnings of some found family moments within Spella’s journey through her new school. I happened to have listened to the audiobook and thought it was fantastic too. I absolutely will be continuing this series.

Overall audience notes:

• Middle Grade Fantasy
• Language: none
• Romance: none
• Violence: low

Instagram || Goodreads || The StoryGraph