With the holiday fast approaching, Tilly Ipswitch, the Queen of Halloween, is horrified to discover that a cheerful happiness has overtaken her! What self-respecting witch would harbor kind thoughts, or go through the day with a smile on her face? Determined to put things right, Tilly visits Doctor Weegee of Wahoo, a witch-doctor of some repute, and receives her prescription: back to Miss Fitch's Finishing School for Witches, with the aim of reclaiming her fierce meanspiritedness...

My initial excitement at finding this witchy selection from Don Freeman, whose classic picture-book, Corduroy, was one of my childhood favorites, was tempered by a friend's response (put very succinctly: she hated it!), so I was curious to see what I would make of Tilly Witch, in the end. Truthfully, I was less concerned with the nastiness of the character and/or story (aren't witches supposed to be nasty, sometimes?), than the depressingly stereotypical scene in which Tilly visits an island witch-doctor, who looks to be wearing some kind of south-seas mask. I could happily live without that sort of thing, especially as I was otherwise indifferent to both story and illustrations. ( )