Whatta Book: Only A Witch Can Fly

and the moon shone light on the silent broom
and the dark Cat beside you purred, Soar,
would you too, begin to cry
because of your longing to fly?

It’s always great to find a book that has Halloween stuff that is not aHhalloween book.  Halloween is a great holiday, maybe my favorite, but there are lots of books about the holiday parts and not enough about the excitement and thrill and being in the spirit of the day.  I would guess that the urge to fly is a fairly universal thought, and this book, with swoopy, lyrical text delivered in the form of a sestina in which the words at the ends of the lines are arranged in a rotating order.  Complex and beautiful work from Alison McGhee.

The art really grabs me in this book.  Taeeun Yoo laid out some mysterious stuff in The Little Red Fish.   This time, she picks a sort of pale earthy palette that reminds you of standing in moonlight, which is exactly where the story leads.  You could read an underlying note of ‘try, try again’ here or something like that, but if you do get this book, please read it with the idea that you would like to get on a broom and SOAR.

Only A Witch Can Fly
by Alison McGhee
illustrated by Taeeun Yoo
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends; First Edition edition (August 4, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0312375034

Also, here’s how some witches use brooms in real life.  My favorite part is when she says what kind of car she drives.