The Witch's Guide to Cooking with Children

The witch’s guide to cooking with children

By Keith McGowan, ill. Yoko Tanaka

This book is a Texas Bluebonnet Award Nominee for 2012.

Children who get into trouble or otherwise aggravate their parents get eaten by the ancient witch Fey Holaderry, at least according to her diary entry which begins the story. Solomon(Sol) and Constance(Connie) Blink move into an apartment next to the witch’s house and begin to explore their neighborhood by running into Fey’s dog, J. Swift, and his bone. Sol thinks the bone is strange, and being of a scientific mind, he tries to find out more about it.

Soon it becomes apparent that the Blinks have moved to Grand Creek for a reason. Their parents want to get rid of them, and know about the witch who lives next door. In fact, their parents aren’t actually their parents at all. However, their “children” are only aware that something isn’t quite right in their family.

Then Sol enters the science fair at school and a catastrophe occurs with his entry because of his sister Connie’s accidental destruction of it. Luckily, the children meet up with another ancient woman who is the opposite of Fey Holaderry, and are encouraged to trust their intuitions and find their own way out of their troubles.

When their ersatz babysitter tries to turn them over to the witch, their suspicions are verified, and they discover that together they can evade the witch’s purpose using their combined strengths. Although the witch manages to trick Connie into falling under her control, Sol uses his superior reasoning skills and rescues her in the nick of time.

Although not certain that the witch is destroyed, the children walk off into the sunset together and determine to start a new life in a new place. The story ends with a cautionary note to all children who think they are safe from the wiles of Fey Holaderry, she is still alive!

This story is an example of an old form of story, the fairy tale, re-written in modern format. It relies on dialog and innuendo to carry the old tale into a modern situation and still maintain the original “moral.”

McGowan, K., & Tanaka, Y. (2009). The witch's guide to cooking with children. New York: Henry Holt and Company.