Author: Frank Cammuso
Illustrator: Frank Cammuso
© Date: 2013
Publisher: Amulet Books
Pages: 95
Chapters: No
Illustrations: Yes, graphic novel
Publisher Recommended Age: 6-9 years
Bonus Activities at End of Book: Fun facts about the author
Summary from Book: Meet Salem Hyde.
She’s stubborn and impulsive, and her hobbies include making friends, collecting unicorns, and flying. That’s right—Salem Hyde is a witch!
To help her stay out of trouble, her parents find her an animal companion, Percival J. Whamsford III. This over-anxious cat doesn’t like Salem calling him “Whammy,” and Salem doesn’t like listening to his long-winded explanations as to why she shouldn’t do something. But when Salem enters the school spelling bee and tries to “spell” her way to victory, she needs Whammy’s help to clean up the mess.
Red the first in the series of Salem’s hilarious adventures!
Note: This review is done from memory. I originally read this awhile ago.
Page Pig Thoughts: A fun story of a girl learning self control and magic control. It is not hard to laugh somewhere in the story. The humor starts at the very beginning when Salem confuses spelling using the alphabet with spelling using magic. We giggled our way through to the next story. The giggles continued through the series.
Family Unit: Salem Hyde lives at home with her mother and father. Whammy the cat joins them in their home as a Magical Animal Companion for Salem.
Conflict/Social Issues:
- Salem is not the best at casting spells, so she creates some mishaps.
- Salem initially does not think that she needs any help. But then realizes that Whammy can be helpful, but they don’t always agree on the method to success.
- Shelley, Salem’s know-it-all classmate, gives Salem grief and says that Salem cannot spell.
- Mr. Fink believes Salem is a trouble making witch and wants her expelled from school. He is continually seeking enough proof to make that happen.
Positive Items:
- Salem and Whammy work as a team when confronted with the issue of a disastrous spelling bee.
- Salem learns to accept help from Whammy.
- Whammy learns how to have patience with Salem.
Items of Interest:
- Shelly tells Salem that she is bad at spelling.
- Mr. Fink, a teacher, believes that Salem should be expelled from school.
- Mr. Find winds up in a garbage can. Later a spell turns him into a boar, he starts eating garbage, then turns back into a human as he still has garbage in his mouth.
- Whammy wrote a letter of resignation because he did not think things would work out with Salem. He put the letter in the mail. Then he changed his mind on resigning, but could not get the letter before Salem did. She forgave him quickly because she is impulsive and relates to what Whammy did on a whim.
- Salem does not win the spelling bee, but neither did Shelly.
- The book ends with Shelly still bald from a magic mishap. Since magic blunders were getting cleaned up, I would like to think that it got fixed quickly. Either way, Shelly has her hair back in the next book.
- The time of Whammy’s trial run comes to an end, but he and Salem finally come together out of mutual fondness.
- A short bit of a reference to a classic story is given in each book in the series when Whammy offers stories to learn from. The stories are told slightly differently and with Whammy as a character.
Other Books in Series (At Time of Posting):
- Book 2 – The Misadventures of Salem Hyde: Big Birthday Bash – Whammy vomits all over Mr. Fink partway through this story
- Book 3 – The Misadventures of Salem Hyde: Cookie Catastrophe
- Book 4 – The Misadventures of Salem Hyde: Dinosaur Dilemma
- Book 5 – The Misadventures of Salem Hyde: Frozen Fiasco