Willow Wildthing and the Magic Spell
Gill Lewis, illustrated by Rebecca Bagley
Oxford Children’s Books

It’s great to see another adventure of Willow and her friends. Now they’re on a mission to save the Wilderness from the clutches of a dastardly property developer, one Lord Smog aka the money wizard, who it seems will stop at nothing to get his way. That means he intends to fell all the trees to make way for his housing development.

What Willow needs is to ‘out-spell’ him and there’s somebody the Wild Things know who can surely help them. Off they go to see their witch friend though even she isn’t very hopeful, initially at least. But after some discussion on the possibilities of what a spell might do they set about creating one – a spell written from the heart. That’s part one of the plan.

The second is to make their adults remember what it was like to be wild.

Can they do it? Anything is worth a try to save the wild green space wherein nature and magic meet, that they love so much.

At first I thought perhaps ash dieback might be the reason for the trees being marked and it was a relief to find it wasn’t so: even a powerful enchantment of the Willow kind wouldn’t work against that.

I really loved that Willow, her little brother Freddie, Bear, Fox, Mouse, Hare and Raven co-create the spell.

I’m sure Willow’s multitude of established fans will relish this smashing story spell-bindingly created by Gill Lewis and Rebecca Bagley; and the determined girl will doubtless add significantly to her fanbase too.