Maggie Steincrohn Davis

Althea Dolores Mathilda McBool, a rickety old witch with a good heart, lived on the prairie with two younger, far meaner witches, who were as "sour as lemon seeds," and who made her life miserable. Forced by the other two witches to clean and polish the wagon (which she herself had discovered), but forbidden from using it, Althea rebels one Halloween, driving it into town and dispensing treats to the local children. Rushing to get home, before the other two return from their holiday flight, and discover her defiance, she accidentally stumbles upon a method of ridding herself of her tyrannous roommates...

Witchy fiction gets a western flavor in this vintage picture-book from 1984 - do books published in the 1980s count as "vintage?" I'm not really clear on that, although this one feels vintage, in any case - with the prairie setting, and the wooden buckboard. I cannot say that Rickety Witch is ever going to rank with my favorites, when it comes to witchy picture-books, but I'm glad to have stumbled across it this past weekend, at my library, as I'm always looking for titles I haven't seen before, and I appreciate the unusual setting and themes. Recommended to anyone looking for prairie-witch tales, or Halloween stories with a western sensibility.… (más)