Ida DeLage, a picture-book author who created the fourteen-volume Old Witch series, published from 1966 through 1983, spins an enchanting stand-alone fairy-tale in this 1968 story of Weeny Witch. Small and not particularly fierce, Weeny Witch stands out from her peers, and provokes the ire of the Queen of the Witches, when she is late for a midnight meeting. When the witches plot to capture and destroy the Night Fairies, who light the stars each night, Weeny Witch ends up foiling their plans, helping the fairies to escape. Taken with them to Fairyland, she discovers that she is no witch, but a stolen fairy-child, who is welcomed back by the Fairy Queen, and renamed Silverwing...

Having read all fourteen of DeLage's Old Witch picture-books, as well as her ABC Halloween Witch, but never having managed to track down Weeny Witch, which I have always understood to be one of the author's best stories, I was quite happy when my local library was able to obtain a copy through inter-library loan. Huzzah for librarians! I enjoyed the story here a great deal, probably the best of any witchy tale I have read from DeLage, and I found Kelly Oeschli's accompanying illustrations charming. The witches are depicted in a truly creepy way, while the fairies are delightfully cute. This is a difficult book to track down, but if one can find a copy, I believe readers who enjoy witchy tales (as I do) will find it quite entertaining. ( )