Anna Sophia tells an astounding story of her origins. The man she affectionately calls Uncle Misha found her when he was trapping sables for fur in Siberia. He says a spirit inspired him to intrude into a bear's cave where he found a tiny baby wrapped in furs. DIARY OF ANNA THE GIRL WITCH takes up with Anna, aged thirteen, at a good school in Geneva, Switzerland. She misses Uncle Misha and his stories, and she has a good friend Gaelle.

Now she is thirteen, Anna is sure she is nearly grown-up. But she hadn't expected to be able to make time stop briefly, or to change a garden snake into a scarf. When a wealthy family called the Montmorencys arrive, Anna isn't delighted. Even though they promise her a hot air balloon ride, and have helped orphans, she never really trusted them. From the air she seems to see a dark shadow wrapped around the nearby castle where the Montmorencys live. Is seeing sinister omens part of witchcraft? Anna has no-one she can ask for the school is run by kind nuns. Gaelle isn't well, for no apparent reason.

An inheritance arrives which includes some strange items - one is a picture of a cottage built on stilts, but the stilts look like chicken legs. From my reading of Central European fairytales I immediately recognised the significance of this cottage. But I'll let the Young Adult readers discover it for themselves. Let's just say that Anna's quiet life immediately gets a lot stranger. A sinister plot is afoot that may be beyond the power of even a girl witch to undo.

There are wonderful line drawings with coloured sections through the pages, by illustrator Raquel Barros who helps to bring the story to life. After every few chapters we get a page from the diary to recap the adventure, which is a help if you are reading over a few days. A boy called Jean- Sebastien is involved so there is plenty to interest boys as well as girls, but DIARY OF ANNA THE GIRL WITCH is a title sure to appeal to girls. I think anyone from ten to mid-teens will have a good time with this sometimes scary adventure. Max Candee says that he creates stories for the perfect audience, his three children, and only publishes the ones they really enjoy. He has written stories for pre- teens and hopes his series 'Anna The Girl Witch' will find a lot of friends. I expect it will!