OMG...Am I a Witch?! by Talia Aikens-Nunez (Pinwheel Books, October 2013) is, a fine choice for the 8 or 9 year old girl who loves dogs (especially small white fluffy ones), thinks it would be fun to have a magical powers, and who isn't quite ready for bigger, more complex books.
April, justifiably annoyed by her older brother, Austin, searches the internet for a spell to turn him into a dog. And much to her surprise, it works! Now instead of a bothersome brother, she has a fluffy white dog, whose justifiably annoyed at her! In the course of the breathless OMG hours of text messages, desperate plotting, secretive sleepovers, and google searches that follow, April and her friends Grace and Eve have to figure out how to turn Austin back...and keep April's parents from finding out.
It's one I think has a lot of appeal for its target audience...and not quite so much appeal for older readers, who might want more of the backstory to the magic (April's new gift is not given much page time, what with all the shenanigans of Austin's dogginess), and it's not desperately complex in terms of plot. On the plus side, though, it has a nice emphasis on friends helping each other, offers a relatable look at sibling tensions, and the magic (though not fully developed) is entertaining.
Short answer- if they like the cover, they'll like the book!
disclaimer: review copy received from the author
That is a cute cover.
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