The Glass Witch

August 22, 2022
The witches of the white Goode family—who share “wide hips, wide eyes, wide smiles”—have long lived in New England’s Cranberry Hollow, their presence necessary to maintain its plentiful wild magic, but an old curse forbids more than three Goodes from existing within town limits at the same time. On the cusp of Halloween, the town hosts a tourist-garnering festival, which includes a baking contest and the Miss Preteen Scary Cranberry pageant. It is then that 12-year-old baking enthusiast Adelaide Goode arrives to stay with her grandmother and aunt while her mother starts a new job. Feeling like one of the abandoned “misfit” bunnies her grandmother takes in, Adelaide triggers the curse, which transforms her bones into glass and sees her stalked by a mystical hunter that has possessed one of a local witch-hunting family. Now Adelaide and new friend Fatima, a horror-loving hijabi of Pakistani descent, must undo the spell before the hunter claims Adelaide’s soul. Puckett focuses on Adelaide’s insecurities around her comparatively weak magical talent, internalized fat phobia, and worries that she’s “never been Goode enough” for her family, slowly outlining an arc toward self-acceptance as the tween learns more about her relatives’ conflicts. Interstitials featuring the hunter’s sinister perspective both contrast and complement Adelaide’s internal mix of humor and frustration, highlighting a complex stew of emotions. Ages 8–12. Agent: Samantha Fabien, Root Literary.