Description
The 2023 Text Prize winner is a magical middle-grade adventure featuring an array of enchanting characters, exotic settings, a deliciously sinister villain and an intriguing mystery to be solved.
Luna rides a battered old broom that keeps crashing itself into the school pond. She has a witch's hat and wand and sometimes she's quite good at magic, but she isn't completely sure that she's a real witch. She doesn't have a familiar for one thing, and she doesn't know where she came from-only that she was found by three witches who she now calls her aunts. When she swaps her moonstone ring for an Australian boobook owl in the Lost Forest, the mysterious bird seller makes her promise to keep the bird hidden for as long as she can. This is not easy when you live with very inquisitive aunts. And it's not easy when you find out that the fearsome Madame Valadon, the Best Witch in Paris, is missing her boobook owl and she's sure that Luna knows something about it.
Could it be that Luna has Madame Valadon's boobook? Why then did the mysterious bird seller give it to Luna? Why did she say the bird belonged to her? A familiar can only belong to one witch, after all. Luna has lots of questions-the biggest one of all is who she really is.
Fun and funny and full of life, The Best Witch in Paris is a delightful story of courage and self-belief, with colourful characters, fabulous magic and a puzzling mystery at its core.
Review
Luna is a witch - she has a hat and a wand and a battered old broomstick. But she doesn’t have a familiar, like her friends at school. They have mice and cats and bats, but she has nothing. She also doesn’t know who her parents are - only that she was found under a tree by the three witches who she calls her aunts and that she loves them dearly.
One day in the Lost Forest Luna meets a mysterious old bird seller and she swaps her moonstone ring for a boobook owl called Silver, who she instantly thinks is her familiar. The bird seller tells her that she must keep her owl hidden for as long as possible. But hiding an owl is not easy - especially when it appears that Luna’s owl is the same one that the head of the magical council, Madame Valadon, is missing and searching for!
Who does Silver really belong to? Is she Luna’s familiar or Madame Valadon’s? Can Luna and her friends solve the mystery before something terrible happens to Silver?
This is a wonderful adventure story, full of amazing characters, lots of magic and a mystery to solve that is set in both Paris and Melbourne. Luna is a witch who is full of determination and courage. It is a fun, read-in-one-sitting story that you will love. With themes of family, friendship and finding your true self woven through the book, readers in upper primary and above will enjoy this!
