The worst witch door Jill Murphy

A summary of this book.

At the top of a high mountain stood an Academy for Witches. It looks like a prison because there are some grey walls and turrets. Sometimes you could see some flying pupils in dark clothes. In the Academy were many rules. You couldn’t do anything without being told off. Mildred Hubble was in her first year at the school and she always had troubles. She hasn’t got a lot of friends. Her best friend was Maud.
At the begin of a school year each pupil was given a broomstick. Mildred often crashed with her broomstick. The day before each pupil would get a kitten of their own. Maud was so excited that she couldn’t sleep, so she had sneaked to Mildred’s room to talk about it. She talked a moment with Mildred but then Miss Hardbroom (the head teacher) knocked on the door. The girls mustn’t be in each other room at night. Maud went back to her own room.
The presentation of the kittens took place in the Great Hall. Everyone sang the school song. A song full of pride, joy and striving. Miss Hardbroom gives everyone a kitten and they must try the kittens sit on their broomsticks. Mildred’s cat doesn’t listen and Mildred calls her cat Stupid. An idea flashed into Mildred’s head: the cat could be in a bag. Miss Hardbroom was very angry. The cat shouldn’t be in a bag. Ethel – a girl who was fantastic in everything – laugh at Mildred. Now was Mildred very angry and she turned Ethel into a pig. In the library she try to find the right spell to turn Ethel back.
The next day everyone must make a mixture in a pair. Mildred (and Maud) made of course the wrong mixture. You must drink a bit. They drink a bit and they vanished without their head. Mildred an Maud must go to Miss Cackle for turn their body back.
Some days ago Miss Hardbroom tells her class they must do a presentation at Halloween. Everyday the class was training the presentation. It pass fantastic.
The day of the presentation Mildred’s broomstick was lost. She must lend one from Ethel. The class made their figures and it goes very well. They must form a circle but then, Mildred falls and the whole class fall at the ground. Miss Hardbroom was very angry.
Mildred must coming by Miss Hardbroom the next day. She thought: ‘It’ll be awful, I could better run away’. She took her broomstick and her cat. She leaves the Academy. She flies a lot. At a moment she hears some voices. There are twenty witches. One witch looks like Miss Cackle, but her voice was a bit different when she spoke. They were whispering about the Academy. They will take over the school. Mildred flies as fast as she can back to school. She tells the story to Miss Hardbroom. She says: ‘ I hope this isn’t a joke, you must tell the story to Miss Cackle.’ Mildred wait a moment in front of the room and then she went in and tells hers story again. Miss Cackle says: ‘The person who you described sounds exactly like my wicked sister Agatha who always been extremely jealous at my position at this Academy.’ Now Miss Cackle was prepared for her sister. Her sister came in. Miss Cackle tells her a lot and she vanished very soon.
The next morning everyone was very boast of Mildred. Maud wake Mildred up and tells her that she must come in the dining-room. Everyone was laughing when Mildred came in the room. Maud and Mildred are friends for ever and they have a very pretty vacation at the end of the school year.

Author

The writer of this book is Jill Murphy. I would tell you something about her.

Jill was born in London and says that she always was a storyteller and an illustrator. "My earliest memory (my mum tells me I was two), is sitting on the kitchen floor surrounded by sheets of drawings." By the age of six, Jill was stapling her own little illustrated storybooks together - her mum kept them all and she still has them today! "It's great fun to see them all these years later," she says. "You can see how my handwriting and drawing improved as time went by." Jill left school at sixteen and went on to the Chelsea Art School and Croydon Art School. Two years later, she finished her first novel The Worst Witch, about a little witch who doesn't fit in at her new school - a story she says was heavily based on her experiences at school. She sent it off to three big London publishers, who all turned it down. After a spell working as a nanny and in a children's home, Jill had a phone call from a small publisher interested in The Worst Witch. It was printed when she was twenty-four, sold out almost immediately, and Jill knew for sure she wanted to follow a career as an author/illustrator.
Jill has written and illustrated numerous books since The Worst Witch was published, including three more books about little witch Mildred Hubble. In whole Europe is a movie made about the worst witch and there are some programs for TV.