JESSICA HAGGERTHWAITE: WITCH DISPATCHER

A lightweight first-chapter book with a British flavor. It’s hard enough for an 11-year-old to have a mom who is a witch, but when Jessica’s mother decides to go professional, that’s the last straw. She and her younger brother Nat are tired of being teased at school, and tired of their parents’ bickering, as Mr. Haggerthwaite isn’t much pleased with his wife’s activities, either. He even moves into Aunt Kate’s, taking his prize tomatoes with him. But Mrs. Haggerthwaite’s spells and potions begin to have a great following, and Jessica’s Plan A and B (and even C)—to get her mother to stop and her father to return—backfire. An alliance with the most unpleasant boy in the class and Jessica’s science project involving both her mother’s potions and her dad’s tomatoes propel the story, arch and exaggerated to the end, where all turns out very well indeed. The squiggly and whimsical line drawings are just the ticket for reflecting the unserious tone. (Fiction. 8-12)