WHISPERING TO WITCHES

Joe Binks is not born a witch, but the “insignificant schoolboy” manages to end up in a coven anyway. It’s his father’s fault, really, for sending him off at the last minute to his mother’s house for Christmas. On the unpleasantly eventful train trip from London to Canterbury, Joe finds himself embroiled in a treacherous plot involving a glamorous, crimson-lipped woman with a basket of glowing-eyed creatures and with a mysterious viper doodled on his suitcase. Add a terrifying ride through the countryside on a large orange bewitched tricycle, a headlong plunge into the aforementioned coven, a blossoming friendship with a young witch-in-training named Twiggy, and the troubling mystery of the missing, potentially-perilous-if-located page 513 in the revered witch manual Mabel’s Book, and the ingredients for an action adventure are complete. Plenty of potions (Lingo Liquorice for talking to animals!) and plot twists keep the story buoyant, and abundant acts of selfless bravery contribute a sweet, uplifting quality that distinguishes this lightning-quick broomstick ride, British-style. (Fiction. 9-12)