Cat Tricks

Witch Wendy #3

by Alex Gutteridge, Annabel Hudson (Illustrator)

Book three in a quirky, funny new witchy trilogy for beginning readers. Meet Witch Wendy. She's pretty much a disaster, as witches go. She muddles up her magic. She keeps crashing her broomstick. She doesn't even Smell as nasty as the other witches. Luckily, her cat Snowflake is a very smart kitty - and is always there to help her out of trouble...In this book: Witch Rosemary, the nastiest witch, has to go to hospital for an operation (she's losing her cackle). While she's away, someone has to look after her cat, Coalface - and Wendy draws the short straw. Snowflake is distraught. But things improve when Coalface pinches Wendy's spell book, which is full of mistakes and abbreviations, and mistakenly works some magic on himself...

64 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 2002

About the author

Alex Gutteridge is the author of 12 children’s books. Her work includes humorous young fiction, stories for reluctant readers and YA novels. Her book Oven Chips for Tea was broadcast on the radio and her 2013 novel, Last Chance Angel, was short-listed for eight awards including the Romantic Novelists’ Book Award in the young adult category. She has had two picture books published in South Korea and her latest YA novel, No Going Back, published by Templar Books was commended at the Sheffield Book Awards and won the Northamptonshire Children's Choice Book Award.

Alex was born and brought up in Leicestershire where she still lives. An only child she spent a lot of time making up stories inside her head and sometimes getting into trouble for that! Her first book was based on an old Leicestershire legend about a highwayman and his wife and nearly all of Alex's books have been submitted as unsolicited manuscripts.

Alex is currently working on another YA novel and has just completed some young fiction and an adult romance.

Alex occasionally blogs about her writing inspirations at alexgutteridge.blogspot.co.uk
You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Witch Wendy and her cat Snowflake return in this third and final beginning chapter book devoted to their adventures, following upon Cats and Hats and Broom Broom! When the pair learn that nasty Witch Rosemary has lost her cackle and cannot speak, they are at first pleased, thinking they will be spared her vitriol. But when Rosemary must spend a few nights in the Cackle Clinic, leaving her even nastier cat Coalface in Wendy and Snowflake's care, they are less pleased. When the obnoxious Coalface is transformed into a bluebottle fly, can Snowflake reverse the change before Rosemary comes to claim him...?

Cats and Hats is an entertaining conclusion to Alex Gutteridge's Witch Wendy trilogy, and is sure to please young readers who enjoyed the previous two entries in the series. That said, I think it can also be read on its own, and would please any child who enjoys witchy fare, and is just getting going with chapter books. The tale is brief but humorous, with the usual hi-jinks and hilarious missteps to be expected from these characters. Spells gone wrong are not uncommon in such tales, and make for amusing reading. The accompanying black and white artwork of. Annabel Hudson, who illustrated the entire series, is very cute and well-suited to the story.