#bella sinclair

Publishing Information:

Published by HarperCollins, 1986. Hardback dimensions measure 6.25 x 0.38 x 8

Awards Won:

None found.

Story or Concept Theme:

Lulu is jealous that her baby sibling is getting all the attention, so she casts a magic spell to make the baby disappear, and immediately regrets it.

Target Audience/Age:

I Can Read! Level 2: Reading with Help. Ages 4-8.

Narrative Plot

Beginning: Lulu jealously reflects on how much presents and attention Witch Baby gets. Middle: Lulu’s mother goes to the store and tells Lulu to babysit Witch Baby, but not to go into the magic room. After Witch Baby rips up her drawing, Lulu goes into the magic room and casts a spell, but one of the ingredients is missing. She finds that it worked anyway. End: Lulu gets nervous about how their mother will respond to Witch Baby’s disappearance. She wonders if Witch Baby is safe, and feels guilty. She cannot find a way to reverse the spell, but when she looks again, Witch Baby is back. Their mother comes into the room and says that she had taken Witch Baby to wash her at the time when Lulu thought she was missing. They eat a pie together.

Coherence/relation between text + visual pictures:

The illustrations have a definite “snake and spider” aesthetic to them that complements the story well. Overall, the color pallet is very dark. The illustrations clearly represent the actions described in the text.

Storytelling techniques used:

This book has complex, detailed sentences. It uses rhymes in key moments, and repeats the phrase “After all, she was just a baby,” at first at moments where Lulu disparages the baby, and again in the end when she understands that sometimes babies can’t do things that older children can.

Physical structure/design:

Physical copy has 64 pages. The text is set in a large, serif font. Lines are well spaced. The distribution of the text is varied throughout the book, but it never overlaps with the images or needs to be outlined.

Brief assessment of the book's quality:

This book is good for this age group because it uses a stock plot (child is jealous, child acts rashly, child regrets it, the situation resolves itself), but adds a gimmick to engage readers (they’re witches). This means that readers can devote more attention to the text than the narrative.

Brief assessment of potential use of book with young readers, if applicable:

I can see this being used as a morality tale, especially for children who recently became big siblings. I don’t really see it in an education setting, but I can imagine it being recommended for parents whose children are having difficulty adjusting to a change in dynamic due to a new baby.

Brief assessment of the book's appeal to potential readers:

The witchy aesthetic of this book would definitely appeal to kids, especially around Halloween time. Jane O’Connor is also a big draw because she wrote the Fancy Nancy books. The illustrations are a bit dark in color, with clear pencil lines that distract rather than add texture. It was republished in 2014 with new illustrations by Bella Sinclair (not pictured), which look brighter and cleaner.