Highly recommended to young fairy-tale enthusiasts, or picture-book readers who enjoy seasonal stories with some magic in them. I bought this hard cover book for my own library and can't wait to gift it to my adult children if/when they have children of their own.

Little Witch Hazel: A Year in the Forest is the first book I have read from Wahl, but I certainly hope it will not be the last! Phoebe graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Illustration and currently lives in Bellingham, Washington.To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

Instead, the coloured-pencil textures evoke the spirit of some early picture books by author-illustrators such as Wanda Gág. Autumn: The Haunted Stump sees Hazel and her friends investigating a very spooky sound, and making a new friend in the process. In Spring: The Orphaned Egg, Hazel cares for an abandoned egg, raising Otis the owl when he hatches. Little Witch Hazel is a beautiful ode to nature, friendship, wild things and the seasons, that only Phoebe Wahl could create: an instant classic and a book that readers will pore over time and time again.Whatever the case might be, she makes an appealing little heroine, and I hope that Wahl will revisit her world, with its cast of animals and magical creatures, and its days of fun and friendship. Liked the story well enough but when I looked at other books by the author I came across her colour in book. She hatches a random egg she finds in the woods, learns how to relax and take a break, she investigates an eerie noise, and in the end she gets help from an old friend. The only question I wanted answered was why was this witch so little, and the book does not address that at all.

Note if you have sensitive youngsters that the autumn chapter has a bit of a spooky focus where there is a strange moaning sound heard and characters wondering as to whether any scary monsters/creatures are making it (the images of what is being imaged might be frightening to some) though what it turns out to be is nothing scary and provides an opportunity for kindness and compassion. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.

The writing is lush and lyrical, and the textured, earth-toned illustrations expertly capture Hazel’s world, both cozy and gloriously wild . A pleasant walk through the four seasons, this book is four vignettes of stories of Little Witch Hazel and her life in the forest. Instead we just march through the four seasons doing a whole lot of nothing except walking around a tiny village peopled with all sorts of elves, gnomes, and forest critters.

I sought this one out (and had it recommended to me) largely on the strength of my interest in witchy picture-books, but having now read it, I think Hazel is less of a witch, in the traditional sense, and more of an elf or woodland sprite. In "The Orphaned Egg", the diminutive witch finds a rather large egg in the woods and takes it home to keep it safe. Woven with themes of friendship, seasonality, and community, this book has beautiful illustrations that are somehow at the same time simple and detailed. I enjoyed the little details in the illustrations (such as Little Witch Hazel's hairy legs) and found the limited colour palette refreshing.She is the award-winning author and illustrator of Sonya's Chickens , Backyard Fairies and The Blue House . Through all the seasons Little Witch Hazel has adventures in the forest helping animals and friends. In "The Haunted Stump", the witch and her friends try to figure out the mystery of a strange howl that's permeating their usually placid forest. Spend a delightful year with Little Witch Hazel as she hatches an owlet, learns to relax, and investigates a mysterious noise.