MYSTERIOUS MISS SLADE

The author of Spider Sparrow (2000) again looks to society’s margins, chronicling the growth of an unlikely friendship between a seedy, solitary septuagenarian and a newly arrived young family. Maggie Slade has a patch on one eye (relic of a Guy Fawkes Day accident), lives in a shabby caravan without electricity or running water, and is widely regarded by local children as a witch. Too new in the village to have been warned off, young Patsy and Jim Reader wander by and, once they get used to the barnyard reek that hangs about Maggie and her property, have a delightful visit. Even the children’s wary parents are soon disarmed by her sweet, gracious manner. King-Smith makes it clear that Maggie lives the way she does not from necessity—in fact, she turns out to be a baron’s daughter, with a churn full of pound notes and gold sovereigns buried out back—but by choice. In Kronheimer’s frequent pen-and-ink illustrations, her content shines out beneath her raffish exterior. Still, meeting the Readers prompts her to see at last how far she’s let herself go, and her conscientious new friends prove to be johnnys-on-the-spot, first when she takes a nasty spill, then when a would-be robber pays a call. The climactic bits give shape to the story, but it hardly needs it: with a donkey to ride, plenty of playful dogs and cats, and a neverending supply of chips and cookies, Maggie makes a neighbor almost any child would love to have. (Fiction. 10-12)