Tom and the Hedgewitch - C.A Lewis

Author: C.A Lewis

Illustrator: Leanne Allen

Genre: Children's Fiction, Chapter Book.

Rating: 3.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: A good and imaginative attempt but it became too ambitious in its scope. Nevertheless, children will enjoy the adventures.

Story Synopsis:

Tom is a curious eleven year old who wants to know more about a witch living in the forest. He soons finds out that her name is Freya, she is a ‘hedgewitch’, and not all witches are bad. Along with Freya and his best friend Jenny, Tom finds himself facing many adventures and meeting many fascinating magical creatures, not all of whom are good.

This is like a chapter book of adventures, akin to the various magical adventure books written by Enid Blyton. The fantasy element is very strong through the novella. (It is just about 110 pages long.) There are some nice colourful full-page illustrations to add to the impact.

The dynamic across Tom, Jenny and Freya is very good. Their personalities are carved well. Jenny’s character is especially fun as she is a prankster and too cheeky for her own good. Tom and Freya are the ones cleaning up the mess left by Jenny’s behaviour. There are also some scenes with talking animals, which children will surely enjoy.

For the first time ever, I felt like a story was whizzing by too fast. Scenes keep changing within a few paragraphs and a single chapter covered too much events. There was little time spent on character background or atmosphere. For example, there’s one scene where Jenny eats a ‘levitation biscuit’. It sounds like such a magical idea, straight out of Enid Blyton’s imagination. But the scene is over within a couple of paras and there’s no revelation on how Jenny felt about being able to levitate for a few minutes. Adding her excitement would have elevated that scene. The entire book proceeds in this choppy way, jumping across a multitude of happenings without focussing on detailing them. This is the biggest shortcoming of the book.

There is a whole load of strange creatures in the book, both common ones such as goblins, dragons and faeries, to unheard ones such as a Corrigan and a spriggan. While I initially enjoyed this new glimpse into creatures of lore, it soon felt like the book tried too hard to incorporate novelty into the content. Maybe it would have been better to have extended adventures with just a few creatures than having too many of them in a single novella.

The Amazon blurb marks this as a fantasy-adventure for children aged 8 to 12 but because of the content, I would recommended this to children aged 10+. Some of the scenes are pretty dark and terrifying.

Overall, children might certainly like this book based on the fun-filled and/or dangerous adventures that Tom and Jenny have in this book. There are some children’s books that transcend age - this isn’t one of them. It will appeal only to a limited age range. Younger than 10, you might get anxious about the scary stuff. Older than 13, you will find the storytelling too simplistic. Nevertheless, it is a great attempt for a debut indie work and I am sure that with a bit of polishing and practice, the author will churn out many wonderful and novel tales for kids.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author through @LucyTurnsPages on Twitter, and these are my honest thoughts about it.