Keep going N along Jesmond Dene Road. On your R is a piece of flattish land just above the dene — this was the site of Stotes Hall, which had two claims to fame before being demolished in the s. You are now very close to the site of Jesmond Grove, another stately home demolished in modern times, which was the home of James Losh. His local history books preserved and popularised the history of the North East and gave opportunities to other local writers.
Join Osborne Avenue and then take the footpath past the cricket ground, which leads to Clayton Road. The second house on your R, Fernwood House, has an astonishingly rich history. Apr 12, Thomas rated it it was ok. Ibbotson is a lovely storyteller but Not Just a Witch doesn't quite fit. It's difficult to figure out it's target audience.
The prose is tightly written and the story isn't complicated, but it's not a book for beginners either. Ibbotson doesn't shirk on her varied vocabulary a good thing and doesn't talk down also a good thing but the ideas are a little haphazard and the story a little patchwork. And while Not Just a Witch has it's funny moments, it's not a laugh out loud book and often the jokes are subtle chuckles aimed at adults rather than children.
The titular witch, Heckie, has the power to turn people into animals and wishes, controversially, to root out evil and meanness and transform those offenders into a suitable piece of zoo fauna. She has fallen out with her oldest friend, another witch, and over the course of the book they both fall blindly in love with a creepy seller of animal furs who seduces them and sets them up with a wicked plan to transform the local prison inmates into snow leopards and skin them all.
A slightly gruesome and amusing plot line except for how irritating the two unbelievably naive witches are; it doesn't fit to their initial characters and doesn't paint a very clever female image in the book. The young characters who befriend, help and try to rescue Heckie from her folly are largely ignored and undeveloped, although they have the potential to be more interesting characters.
Above all, Not Just a Witch seems a little rushed. It's a lightweight comedy with some silly action scenes and little or no background to the witchy characters that populate it, no real feel for the decorative aspects of fantasy and magic. It's not bad either; fun to read and intelligently written for good, mature young readers.
But there's better out there, particularly from Ibbotson herself who has written much better novels than this. May 21, Barb Chansky rated it really liked it. Once again, I dare you to read Eva Ibbotson and not laugh out loud never mind falling in love with her characters. Boris's idea about perfect air for balloons is genius!
Highly recommend to everyone including my customers. Trigger warning: animal cruelty mentions shooting animals, skinning animals for fur etc.
Other than the triggers I'm vegan , I loved this book. I want a dragworm familiar of my own. Highly inventive and thought provoking. Eva Ibbotson was something truly remarkable. I have been an enormous fan of Ibbotson and her writing for years.
As this one didn't have a very engaging cover I shied away from it. I finally decided to try it and aside from the so-so cover the book was very engaging and a delight from start to finish. Aug 13, Shandiloo rated it it was amazing. Another absolutely amazing book by Eva Ibbotson! I love how simple and wonderful it was! Nov 06, Carson hall rated it it was ok. Although I loved all the other books by this author, this one was not one of my favorites. May be disturbing to children who love animals.
Dec 06, Missy Norman rated it really liked it. I adored this book as a kid Jan 04, Mom rated it it was amazing. Love the book. Nov 02, Victoria Zigler rated it it was amazing. This was a fun and entertaining read. Two witches who were best friends growing up have a falling out and long to see each other again, but are each afraid that the other is still angry. So instead, they concentrate on their work of transforming nasty people in order to make the world a better place. As with the dark wizard and witches in Which Witch?
One turns people into animals, and the other to stone. They're also both taken in by a furrier who feigns romance with them in a scheme to Two witches who were best friends growing up have a falling out and long to see each other again, but are each afraid that the other is still angry. They're also both taken in by a furrier who feigns romance with them in a scheme to make money by selling animal skins and stone statues.
There's also a neglected child helping out the animal witch, because there generally is in these stories. I have to say I was rooting for the witches to rekindle their friendship, which they eventually do. Jan 06, Mackenzy rated it really liked it. My book title is Not Just a Witch. The author is Eva Ibbotson. The genre is fantasy, and it has pages.
My story starts out with Heckie and Dora two witches that are friends and are going to witch school and they are about to graduate witch school. At the graduation Heckie and Dora are both wearing the same hat and they start to rip each others hats apart. Heckie moved to Wellbridge and opened her own pet shop. Another character Daniel and his friend Sumi are babysitting and they just put the baby boy down for a nap.
Daniel went to check on him and instead of the boy was a bulldog. Sumi was sleeping so Daniel snuck out the back door. When he arrived Heckie greeted Daniel, She admitted to changing the boy in to Daniel and they went back. Heckie changed the bulldog back in to the boy. Daniel was a lonely boy whose parents were professors and never payed any attention to him.
Heckie wanted to be his friend. The next day Heckie told Daniel that she was a witch and wanted to be his friend. Heckie and Daniel came up with the idea that next time they see an animal that wished his life was over Heckie would change it into a chinese dragon. The next day when they where walking through the park they noticed a duck that was down on himself this was the perfect opportunity for them to make their dragon. This was not suppose to happen. When there was a wicked person near the Dragworm he would swell up like a balloon.
Heckie met a man in the bank, his name was Lionel Knachsap. He was very handsome Heckie fell in love. Heckie did not know he was very evil and wicked. He claimed that the would swell up if he saw her dragworm. Dora moved in to the same town that Heckie was in she opened her own stone carving business.
Dora had also fell in love with Lionel Knachsap. Heckie and Dora both got engaged on the same day to the same guy. They did not know they were living in the same town but now engaged to the same guy. Dora missed Heckie and Heckie missed Dora.
Lionel Knachsap was a Man that own a business for fur coats he had a order for snow leopard coats. He made Dora turn all of the prison guards at the prison in Wellbridge into stone. He made Heckie turn all of the prisoners there into snow leopards.
Heckie and Dora started to feel like he was a bad person but were not convinced. Heckie was taking the Dragworm for a walk and Dora was going to the store. When Dora drove by Heckie She immediately stopped. I loved this book it was fun and had many scary parts. I recommend this book to anyone who likes to be on the edge of scary. Feb 10, Emrys rated it really liked it Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy , middle-grade-fiction.
There is something so comfortably British about it. She writes in a very narrative way, rather than in a manner that makes you feel like you are getting the story from the perspective of any one or two characters.
You kind of get to see everything and everyone, and make your own choices. This omniscient style particularly lends itself to usefulness in this book. This is because this story was about a group of people who wish to be very good, and they do this by finding people who are very bad, and changing them forever.
They have the power to do it, but the book lets the reader think about whether or not this is right. I found myself rooting for Heckie, and loving her all the more when she falls for a terrible man, and lets herself overlook all his lies. As an animal witch, she knows instinctively that animals are all innocent, beautiful, lovely, and in all ways generally superior to human beings.
When she transforms a human into an animal, no matter how nasty that human may have been they take on all that purity of an animal. And so she finds her perfect way to rid the world of irrevocably wicked personalities. The morning gift. Madensky Square. Journey to the River Sea. The beasts of Clawstone Castle. The haunting of Hiram C.
Not in Library. The Haunting of Hiram. Die Morgengabe. The Worm and the Toffee-nosed Princess. Island of the aunts. Time , , , , , , 19th century , 20th century.
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