The Pongwiffy Stories 1: A Witch of Dirty Habits and The Goblins' Revenge by Kaye Umansky

The Pongwiffy Stories 1: A Witch of Dirty Habits and The Goblins' Revenge by Kaye Umansky
Buy The Pongwiffy Stories 1: A Witch of Dirty Habits and The Goblins' Revenge by Kaye Umansky at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: A very welcome re-presentation of two witty and clever, warm and comical tales of a dodgy witch and her friends.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 352	Date: August 2017
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's UK
ISBN: 9781471167386
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Meet Pongwiffy. She must be the smelliest, ugliest, most slurpy, non-house-cleaning and all-round disgusting witch out there. She's forced to live alongside the noisiest, most stupid Goblins around, and it's with great reluctance that anyone ever comes to visit – and when they do they get acclaimed as her best friend. And she doesn't even have a familiar, either. She is a hopeless person. But when said 'best friend' forces her to advertise for a familiar, nobody could expect what turns up…

All told, this is a bit like Pongwiffy – a mess of dubious vintage and origin. But, more importantly, like Pongwiffy this is equally great fun. She's a very enjoyable character to spend time with, and it's no real surprise that the first two novels in her ongoing saga have been collected in one volume (to be followed in three-month gaps by other compendiums). It's a very fine read – I wish there were more of the new illustrations, for while they're great we only get one every couple of chapters, but at the same time the writing is very visual, and everyone is served by the text just as well as could be hoped.

In the first book, then, Pongwiffy is really not much of a witch – until said familiar comes along. She's reluctant to move away from the Goblins, then is reluctant to move out from the emergency lodgings her 'best friend' gives her, but is still in the most boring coven around. Their leader is senile, and they even need a talent show to liven their meetings up, such is their lot. Now I have read a lot of series for readers this age and a talent show normally comes up in book three or four when the author is a little short of inspiration. To have one as early on as this is more an indication of how wacky these books are. It's nice to say that they do have the craft to make sure Pongwiffy comes out on top, and for her to be a successfully active player as opposed to a character stuck suffering every mishap that comes their way. That isn't quite the case with the second adventure, as it's such a deep situation she finds herself in that it's a collective effort to get out of it, but the drama of the frightened broomstick, the vengeful Goblins (and a fancy dress party, of course) is yet another very strong one.

The writing is, again, clear, and jovial, if a little basic. People invert everything to fit in with this world – bad gracious instead of the good kind, etc – although it has to be said that's a joke that other books are using to this day. What it all allows is for us to both laugh about Pongwiffy and enjoy her despite her disgusting ineptitude. The sequel had more in the way of clever wordplay, and puns, too – these are highly comical books. In fact there's little to mark them down with – a little less warmth and a tad more edge may have come in useful at times, but for the target audience these are right on the button. Finally, the cover is a little too pink in my mind to appeal to both genders, which is a shame – these have the entertainment value to please youngsters of either stripe. I think the finished set of these two-in-ones would be a very attractive proposition.

I must thank the publishers for my review copy.

There have been seven and a half Pongwiffy novels – number seven was reviewed here.

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