The Little Broomstick

The cover of the book shows a nice little girl and her kitty, and a cute title --you think you know what you're getting. But don't judge this book by its cover. Mary Stewart is great at suspense and unsettling moods, and she continues this in one of her few children's books, published in 1972. Her boarding school for young witches is nothing like J.K. Rowlings' wondrous Hogwarts school. It's more of a cross between mad scientist's laboratory and Dracula's castle. Not a place to linger. A chase scene on broomsticks across the moonlit countryside is outstanding. In this book, magic is both terrifying and fascinating, and creeps alongside our everyday lives.

Janet recommended this--I read it in the middle of the night last night when I couldn't sleep, which seemed appropriate.

It definitely has that mid-century British children's fantasy thing going on, with kids being left to stay in elderly houses with elderly relatives and finding their way into fantastical situations. But the writing is really unusual, very sensual and poetic in the descriptions, and not in an annoying way.

The other thing that struck me about this, in a post-Harry Potter world, was that the witches are bad! The little girl has a chance to go to a school of witchcraft, but it is evil and creepy and they do things like blighting turnips.

It is Tib the black cat who leads Mary to the strange flower in the woods. When she discovers a little broomstick shortly afterwards, she is astonished to feel it jump in to action. Before she can gather her wits, it is whisking her over the treetops, above the clouds, and in to the grounds of Endor College, where: 'All Examinations Coached for by A Competent Staff of Fully-Qualified Witches.' Here she discovers evidence of a terrible experiment in transformation - deformed and mutant animals imprisoned in cages. In the moment after her broomstick takes off, she realises that Tib has been captured. Returning to the College the following day, she manages to free the animals, but not before the Head of the college, Miss Mumblechook, and show more her colleague, Doctor Dee, have seen her. Mary manages to flee... but the evil pair are in hot pursuit! show less

I checked out this book for my daughter. She read a couple of chapters and quit because she thought it was too scary. So.....I read it before the book is due back at the library :P I don't think it's too scary, but it is a book about a magic broomstick and a girl with magic powers and a school for wizards and witches. The school is not a fun, good school like the one in Harry Potter. It teaches bad spells that does bad things to people and animals, and the girl stumbled upon it by chance while she was having fun riding the magic broom she also just discovered. That's the first half of the book. The second half of the book deals with how scary the school and its teachers are, how they kidnapped the girl's cat, and how the girl managed to show more learn magic spells to get her cat back and escape the teachers' retaliation to get back to home sweet home. At the end of every chapter the girl gets into a seemingly dangerous predicament and I would think, "oh no!" But in the next chapter the situation is always resolved, sometimes very quickly. I can understand why Japanese animators would see this book as a good basis to create a Ghibli-style animation film (Mary and the Witch's Flower). Things happen in the story, but the plot is not too sensational, and the main character is a good-hearted young girl who tries her very best to do the right thing. show less

Cute and funny. The way the magic sneaked into her life, and the way she accepted it, were good (though Peter was a tad more confusing - why did he accept the magic? Though being trapped in the garden may have gotten him past the hurdle). I didn't like the way the author made it all blur away for them (or her, anyway - again, Peter is not explicitly memory-erased the way Mary is). But a nice little children's story (with a reasonably strong threat, overcome in the standard fairy-tale style of 'having helped others, you get help'). Not particularly memorable - I had in fact read it before but even as I was reading I couldn't remember what happened next. Decent.

Mary is sent to her Great Aunt Charlotte's while her parents are away. There are no children, only her aunt, her companion and the gardener. Mary is lonely, she tries to be helpful but eventually wanders off on her own and finds a small black cat who leads her to a rare purple flower. With the juice of this flower she animates a broomstick which takes her to a school for witches and wizards. This school is not Hogwarts, the headmistress is evil and transforms animals into other animals, then puts them in cages.
One of these transformed animals is the brother of the black cat. When Mary sees the plight of these animals she steals the book of Master spells, only to find the head mistress has stolen her small black cat. How does it all work show more out? Read and see. Excellent book. show less

A childrens classic by one of the best oldskool fantasy writers. I started reading this book when I was 8 years old. It was one of the books in the back of the class you were allowed to read if you'd finished all your homework. I never got to finishing it, so when I found a copy a week ago, I started reading. I really wanted to know how it ended, especially after being presented with a cliff-hanger 14 years ago.
It's cute and fluffy and it was cool before Harry Potter was cool. Not as good as the Witches by Roald Dahl, though.