City Witch, Country Switch
Kindergarten-Grade 3—A rhyming story based on "The City Mouse and the Country Mouse." Mitzi is a city witch who returns home one night to an unexpected visitor, her country cousin, Muffletump, whom she has never met. Muffletump finds the city too noisy, crowded, and polluted, so she casts a few spells to make things more to her liking. When she decides it is time to head back to her country tree house, Mitzi tags along, and needs a few spells of her own to survive without her urban comforts. Finally, Mitzi returns to her city haunts and the cousins realize that they miss each other. They cast a final spell that allows them to be neighbors without sacrificing what makes them happy. Readers will enjoy the situation-changing spells. The illustrations are full of humor (some of which will be appreciated only by adults), including the wordplay built into the storefronts and signs. Libraries interested in fractured tales or nontraditional retellings may want to consider this one.—Maura Bresnahan, High Plain Elementary School, Andover, MACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.