I love this series, and this is a great installment. The accidental Panda transformation problem is hilarious, the new characters are great and kind (mostly), and the summer camp experience is just wonderful. ( )

Charming! i also liked that Effie and Sonia didn't become friends; some people are just never going to like you. And that's healthy for kids to acknowledge.

3.5^ ( )

Summer has come to Brooklyn, and eleven-year-old witch-in-training Effie Huchbolt-Walloo is absolutely distraught to be separated from her best friends for the next month. Oliver is attending a robotics day camp; Berrit is off to a sleepaway camp in upstate New York; Garance is visiting her grandmother in France; and Selimene and Carlota are sending Effie to Raccoon Camp, designed to help young witches foster a connection with nature (though of course she can't tell Berrit and Oliver as much!).

As if this isn't bad enough, on her first day of summer vacation, Effie awakens to find a panda named Henry in her bed! (Being a witch is nothing if not exciting.)

Turns out that Henry is Carlota's nephew - and the previous resident of Effie's room - who had been living in the Bronx Zoo for the past year, ever since heartbreak transmogrified him into a panda. Now he's the newest camp counselor at Camp Raccoon (and Effie's de facto safety blanket).

Unsurprisingly, Camp Raccoon is every bit as awesome as Selimene and Carlota promised, with two glaring exceptions: the lake (Effie can't swim!), and resident mean girl, Sonia. Though - spoiler alert! - Effie conquers the former, will the latter prove to be her undoing when a game of truth or dare goes awry?

The WITCHES OF BROOKLYN series is absolutely charming, and S'MORE MAGIC is no exception. Escabasse introduces us to a plethora of new characters (Henry the panda, and his crush/fellow camp counselor, Moji; Effie's new witch friends, Cora and Ivan; Gertrude the oak; and Fiona and Beecher, the camp's "eco-militant" founders), while still giving us cameos from those we've come to know and love (Lion, Carlota, and an impossibly fierce Selimene).

The concept of a "green thumb" and expanding one's power by tapping into the flow of shared energy is pretty great too; right now, I'm halfway through Season 3 of HARLEY QUINN, and it's giving vibes of Ivy trying to access the shared consciousness of the plant world ("the green") in order to save Frank (though in a much more PG rated way, obvs). And the denouement - which, spoiler alert!, involves a dragon - is *chef's kiss* perfect.

I didn't totally love the resolution with Sonia - but, then again, if Effie had managed to befriend yet another enemy, I'd probably just complain that it was unrealistic (*shrug*). ( )

I love this series, and number three is just as good as the others. I missed the Brooklyn setting, but a camp story is fun too, and the story was snappy and interesting. ( )

Charming! i also liked that Effie and Sonia didn't become friends; some people are just never going to like you. And that's healthy for kids to acknowledge.

3.5^ ( )