A Reluctant Witch’s Guide to Magic

Author: Shivaun Plozza
Illustrator: (Jacket art) Wendy Tan

© Date: 2022
Publisher: Clarion Books
Pages: 282
Chapters: Yes
Illustrations: No
Publisher Recommended Age: 8-12 years
Bonus Activities at End of Book: No

Summary from Book: Willa lives in the Wild, in a city squished between two warring witch covens. The nonmagical Wildians spend their days dodging wayward spells—from raining frogs to dancing to dancing chickens—all because of the witch war raging around them.

Being stuck in the middle of a magical war means the Wildians hate witches—none more so than Willa, whose parents were turned into clouds by a misplaced curse Willa spends her days with her army of cats, dreaming of an end to the war and her parents return.

So when Willa is accused of being a witch after witnesses catch her accidentally stopping a spell in midair, she’s certain there’s been a mistake. She can’t be a witch! Yet Willa is dragged tot he castle, where she’s given one year to master her volatile magic and choose a coven to join. If she doesn’t, she’ll explode.

But her attempts to control her magic are interrupted when a rogue witch begins casting nefarious spells against the Wildians. What does the witch want and what does it have to do with Willa? She must unravel the mystery to save her city, her friends, and herself.

Note: This review is done from memory. I originally read this a short bit ago.

Page Pig Thoughts: Overall an enjoyable read about a girl finding confidence in herself and her abilities that allows her to follow what makes her heart sing, and give up following what she should do and feel unhappy all the time. I almost gave up on reading it after the first chapter, but the story started picking up after that. I enjoyed the mystery of who was casting the spells attacking the non-magical, ordinary humans during a spell ceasefire. In the end, I guessed the wrong culprit, but did at least have the proper one on my list. I suppose I just had an interest in the twist in the story if a different person was the culprit.

I started out naturally drawn to one coven that seemed like the natural choice, but after more is learned, neither coven really sounds great.

Take caution for younger or sensitive readers, the jumbles (mixtures of animal appendages into one creature), some of the curses, and trying to escape spells makes for a story that can be on the scary/unsettling side.

Family Unit: Willa (12 years old) has been fending for herself for a year since her parents were hit by a wayward spell and turned into clouds. Willa has a main cat companion, Talon, but also has an army of a hundred cats that linger around her house and where she happens to be during the day.

Marceline is the daughter of the king, and her brother, Prince Cyrus, does most of the ruling around the kingdom because the King is terrified of magic. The Queen was struck by a wayward inside out spell that was the end of her.

Conflict/Social Issues:

The ordinary, non-magical folks that live in the Wild are constantly watching over their shoulder for wayward spells escaping from the witch coven war. Some spells wind up being tolerable, like the pig that walked on two legs and the rosebushes that turn carnivorous on Tuesdays (the rosebush owner did her gardening a different day). Some spells were more of a problem, like the Dance-till-you-drop! that made you dance until you ground off your feet and legs, all the way up to your neck.
Willa blamed herself for her parents being struck by a Clouds-away! curse that liquefied them, evaporated them, then turned them into a cloud.
Warring witch covens, the Irontongues and Silverclaws, are fighting for the rights to something (the end of the book reveals that one coven wants to enslave non-magical humans and the other coven wants to kill all non-magical humans).
The master weaver at the mill where Willa works blames her for anything wrong that occurs at the mill.
Willa has one year to choose a witch coven. The Irontongue coven is connected to nature and eats anything. The Silverclaw coven is all about power and not afraid to fight to the death with each other.

Positive Items:

Willa stays true to her inner voice and finds that maybe she can make her own choices, not the ones that everyone tells her.
Cats help Willa when she needs help.
Willa makes friends with Gish and Marceline, and her friends stick with her when things are tough and don’t look like a good ending will come.
Willa finds some ways to use her magic to do good things, even if her magic is not well controlled yet.

Items of Interest:

Willa is living on her own, working to keep food on her table, and stay out of the Home for Lonesome Children.
Willa blames herself and is still sad about the day that her parents were hit by a Clouds-away! spell that evaporated them into clouds.
The master weaver blames Willa for a wayward spell that made all of the thread in the mill bind up everyone at the mill. Willa figured out that the thread could be stopped if it were cut, and she somehow guides a pair of scissors to fly around the room and cut all of the thread to free everyone. The master weaver blames Willa all the same for having all of the wool cut into pieces, and he drags Willa off for her punishment. Yes, it was her birthday. No, nobody knew or cared.
The law stated that someone accused of a crime needed to go before the royal clerk, but that was too much paperwork and time. So Wildians dealt with legal matters on their own, with a witness and an accuser. Willa’s punishment for the mill incident was rough music. She was forced into a metal cage/box and could only peer out through a peephole to see the crowd getting pots, pans, pipes, and other various items. The crowd then bashed their items against the sides of the cage to make a horrible noise that rattled the bones, ears, and head of the accused person inside the cage. A wayward spell hits the crowd before Willa’s ten minutes are up, and Gish, the royaldogsbody, pulls Willa from the box.
For not the first time that day, Willa creates her own magic. Now she is accused of being a witch and taken to the king.
Willa is given one year to choose a witch coven and will be taught by an unbiased source. While she is choosing, there is a witch war magical ceasefire. Ferula of the Irontongue coven and Eladar of the Silverclaw coven also stay in the castle with Willa to verify that her teaching is unbiased. Willa just wants to go back to her cottage with the cats.
Willa learns that there are only two kinds of magic (Irontongue and Silverclaw) and if she does not choose a coven before her next birthday, she will explode. The last ordinary person to have magic exploded.
At breakfast, many people are seated at the table. The prince goes on and on about how horrible magic is and how horrible it is that Willa has to stay in the castle until she picks a coven. In another bout of unintentional Willa magic, the plate of eggs mysteriously flies up and spills all over the prince’s face.
Willa still does not believe that she is a witch and cannot purposely cast spells. Her teacher, Gaspard, keeps trying to help her learn about the witch covens and cast magic.
Eladar, the Silverclaw witch, has the standard super long hair and nails of his coven. He mostly speaks through dance and is very connected to nature. Silverclaw witches are considered equal and live together as one big, happy family. He has the standard varied diet, at points he eats boogers and the head off of a rubber chicken. Silverclaw witches smear boogers on people’s faces and fling boogers at others, sometimes in an endearment way, sometimes not.
Ferula, the Irontongue witch, has the standard green, warty appearance, bald head, metal tongue, and bone/tooth bracelet. Irontongue witches live in strict tiers based on their power, they do not want to be around each other, eat worms and raw meat, and settle disputes with a tongue-twister battle to the death.
Willa is excited to make her first friend in Gish, who is happy to have some excitement around the castle.
Willa also befriends Marceline, who is the librarian and turns out to be a princess.
During the ceasefire, Irontongue spells start attacking townspeople. The first spells took ordinary people’s voices, the spells were set as mousetraps taht could not be seen and people would accidnetally trigger. The next spells created jumbles, creatures with appendages of various different animals, that tried to eat ordinary people. The next spells liquefied people when someone said “know.”
Willa goes on a quest to learn more about Rab Culpepper who was the last ordinary person that had magic. He did not choose a coven and died. Before he died, he worked to create his own spells that were combinations of already existing spells. Those spells turn out to be the starting point for all of the spells being unleashed on the townspeople.
Gish loses his voice.
Willa, Gish, and Marceline try coaxing information out of an enchanted book that likes to throw socks at everyone. They also encounter the ghosts in the library, which were a result of wayward spells.
Willa, Gish, and Marceline discover secret passageways through the castle. While in the dark tunnels, they find a cage holding a Ferula jumble. They release Ferula, which is now a Ferula head and a mishmash of animal appendages. She never did say who was the culprit of the spells when she was released.
Younger Willa had been trying to keep her magic in to please her parents because that is what good girls do. But containing her magic did not work very well. She tried being Ordinary, but that did not fit who she really was and her being rebelled.
Current Willa had been trying to be a good girl and not create any trouble. She was trying to contain her magic and hold in her emotions, but that didn’t work very well either. She was consistently having magic explode out of her and left feeling unhappy.
Willa does not want to choose either coven because they are both crummy in their own way. She realizes that being forced to choose a coven was creating a version of herself that was not what she wanted or who she was.
Willa discovers that casting the Rab Culpepper spells actually feel good, unlike trying to bottle up her magic to cast Silverclaw or Irontongue spells.
While unraveling the mystery of who was casting the spells attacking ordinary people, Willa is able to cast some spells to help her friends and save herself. Marceline and Gish help Willa out and help her gain confidence in herself and her own abilities.
The king winds up being hit with a liquify spell.
Turns out Gaspard was not an ordinary person without magic. He was the son of Silverclaw Queen Opalina. When he was old enough for his magic test, Queen Opalina determined that Gaspard did not have strong enough magic to be in the coven, so she banished him.
Gish and Marceline support Willa as she takes on Gaspard and his army of jumbles. The carnivorous rosebushes and cat army tangle up Gaspard long enough for Willa to cast a Rab Culpepper spell that stops Gaspard from casting more spells and undoes all of the magic messes that he created. People get their voices back and jumbles unjumble and become the individual creatures that they started as.
Gaspard had been using Irontongue magic as the base for his spells. Since he was a Silverclaw coven witch, those spells took years off of his life. Willa visits Gaspard in the prison and finds that he is dying. Gaspard still reminds Willa that her choice is to choose a coven or explode. The Silverclaw witches come and take away dying Gaspard.
Willa takes the offer to stay with her friends Gish and Marceline in the castle.
Near the end of the book, Willa shares a revelation. “The truth was, when you stopped listening to the voices that crowed about proper and right and should and shouldn’t, it was much easier to see that your choices were unlimited.”