The witch in Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s “Room on the broom” is kind, friendly, unpretentious, clumsy and even a bit helpless. Very unlike other witches. But little gosling did not know any other… this was the first witch he met and loved it (still does), together with its witch apparel and tools 😛

Until such time we go to the forest (one without mean wolves!!!, only with friendly wolves) to pick up sticks and twigs to make our own witch broom and wand, he runs around the house in complete outfit: our (much smaller and different, imperfect-looking) broom; a big bucket for a cauldron; one of his daddy’s fancy hats, almost invariably covering half his face; and a spatula for a wand 🙂 It’s cute, albeit a bit anxiety-inducing :))) seeing him ride the broom up and down the living room and struggling to hold everything together, just  like the witch in the story. 

The wonderfully catchy rhyme (one of those that stick inadvertently and definitively onto your cortex) goes about the witch losing some of her items, one after the other. As she does, she repays the animals who help her get them back by taking them on her broom. Until… the broom snaps in two!!! A chase ensues, with a dragon and a terrible four-headed monster involved. But the story has a happy ending! The witch gets to show she can do magic, when all her gratefulness translates into a plane comfortable-like broom. 

A truly engaging read-aloud, it is fast-paced, full of suspense, loud, scary, funny, happy. Little gosling has fun reproducing all the sounds in the book. I love his shrieks and croaks :)). He never lets me forget going in a lower, scary voice for the dragon and gets so excited with the jumping; the one that gets the broom to break and the jumps for joy at seeing the newly refurbished broom. He’s truly fascinated by the cauldron and he uses his most mysterious tone to recite the witch’s spell: iggety ziggety…..