If Your Babysitter Is a Bruja
by Ana Siqueira; illus. by Irena Freitas
Preschool, Primary    Simon    32 pp.    g
8/22    978-1-5344-8874-8    $18.99
e-book ed.  978-1-5344-8875-5    $10.99
Spanish ed.  978-1-5344-9884-6    $18.99

If your babysitter is a bruja, Siqueira’s enthusiastic text with frequently incorporated Spanish words (a bath is “a bubbling cauldron with starving ­COCODRILOS!!!”) has plenty of advice to offer. But when one suggestion works, you might just regret it…and the book has your back then, too. Freitas’s cartoonish digital illustrations in mostly cheerful hues show a witch and her babysitting charge in a cat-and-mouse game whose object, ultimately, is friendship and a pleasant bedtime. Brujas-in-training make the best sitting charges. Concurrently published in Spanish as Cuando tu niñera es una bruja.

From the September/October 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.