Unfamiliar Magic (review)

Although twelve-year-old Desi has always known she is a witch, she has never really been able to test the strength of her powers since her mother refuses to teach her any useful spells and keeps them both on the run from her dark magician father. When it appears that Desi's father has found them at last, her mother takes off from their suburban home in the hopes of putting him off the trail, leaving Desi in the care of Cat—their family pet, who has recently been transformed into a teenage girl and Desi's de facto guardian. Cat, however, is somewhat distracted by her new form and, in particular, its effects on the awkward boy next door, leaving Desi with enough unsupervised free time to get into some serious supernatural trouble. The girls' (er, girl's and cat's?) stories each work perfectly well independently: Desi's search to escape her mother's overbearing protectiveness is entirely believable, while Cat's adjustment to human life is both humorous and poignant. Unfortunately, the pairing of the two tales makes for a disjointed plot that seems to go in circles and, more significantly, creates confusion regarding the age of the target audience. Desi's story is a relatively light middle-grade read, involving only a few kerfuffles with the dark side that of course result in a happy ending, while Cat's story, though similarly frothy, contains enough innuendo and teenage angst to lean toward an older crowd. Despite these flaws, this is still a high-spirited read that may appeal to fans of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Mlynowski's similarly themed Bras and Broomsticks (BCCB 1/05).