I was somewhat disappointed in this book; when I read The Witch Herself, I was pleased that Naylor had made the idea of witchcraft so metaphorical. As a reader, you were never quite sure if the strange occurences were actually due to witchcraft or not; it was quite subtle!

This one makes the witchcraft explicit, but it is pretty genuinely scary for it's intended audience! The girls in the book are very isolated; Lynn takes a lot of responsibility on herself to try to defeat Mrs. Tuggle's power over her friend Mouse. No adults believe them and I think that's probably scarier than the witchcraft to Lynn and Mouse.

There is kind of a disconcerting scene where Lynn attempts to kill a cat; the cat has been characterized as evil, as being a "familiar" of Mrs. Tuggle and responsible for a lot of the bad things that happen to the girls. But still, violence against animals is always icky, even if they're evil! ( )