Page 45 Review by Jonathan
"I gave Charlie her protection charm today. I wonder who cursed her."
"It is sad that her family didn't teach her better."
"Or him. Shouldn't we try to find out who it is? Stop their magic from becoming corrupted."
"There is a reason magic is passed down in families. We teach each other, we watch, we take care of our known. We do things differently from family to family, and we respect that."
Indeed. For example, only Aster's family - well, some of them like his Gran at least - is prepared to tolerate a male trainee witch like himself. And of course, not everyone has a family to teach them anything at all, which is the unfortunate case with our 'hidden' witch here. Not to make excuse for evil behaviour, but, you know, role models and all that.
So, new girl in town Ariel, stuck with yet another foster family, has serious trust issues and a shadow self to back up her bad attitude. Aster's non-witch friend Charlie is trying to make friends with Ariel, as that's just the lovely sort of person Charlie is, but so far, all she is getting for her troubles is some serious shadowy spectral spooking.
Much like THE PRINCE AND THE DRESSMAKER, this is actually really about being tolerant of differences, encouraging acceptance of diversity and building friendships with people who aren't simply exact copies of yourself, rather than any sorcery-based shenanigans, though there's just enough of that to cast a spell on proceedings.
It's definitely aimed at every element of the all-ages audience, so don't expect anywhere as sophisticated a storyline as THE PRINCE AND THE DRESSMAKER or NIMONA. It's much more comparable to the likes to REAL FRIENDS, MAKING FRIENDS and pretty much anything written by Raina GHOSTS Telgemeier.
