The Little Leftover Witch by Florence Laughlin, 1960.
Young Lucinda Doon has a great time on Halloween, running around the neighborhood in her ghost costume. During the night, though, she wakes up to hear someone crying or trying not to cry. When she looks out the window, she sees a young witch. The little witch says that her broom broke, and without her broom, she won’t be able to fly. If she doesn’t get back with the other witches by sunrise, she’ll have to stay on the ground and live among normal humans for an entire year.
Lucinda feels sorry for the little witch and tries to help her. She offers the little witch her mother’s broom, but it doesn’t fly because it isn’t magic. They also try Mrs. Doon’s mops and vaccuum, but they don’t work, either. The little witch doesn’t know what to do. Lucinda offers to let the little witch sleep in her bed for the rest of the night, saying that they can talk to Lucinda’s father in the morning. The little witch insists on sleeping in the closet, though, because she likes the dark.
In the morning, the little witch tells Lucinda that her name is Felina. Lucinda introduces Felina to her parents and explains Felina’s situation. They consider whether a helicopter could help Felina, but Felina says that the only thing that can help her is a magic broom, and even then, witches can only fly on Halloween. Felina says that she’s stuck among humans for the year.
Lucinda is eager to have Felina say with them, and Mr. and Mrs. Doon discuss the situation quietly. Felina has a grouchy disposition, but the Doons can see that she’s lost and in need of help. They don’t seem to think that Felina is really a little witch, although they call her one. They say that they had better report finding Felina to the police, in case someone is looking for her. The police take pictures of Felina and take her fingerprints, and Mr. Doon, who works for the newspaper, makes sure that a report about a lost little witch appears in the newspaper. There are a lot of rumors around town that Felina could have been left behind by traveling gypsies or that her family could have been killed in an accident outside of town. However, none of the rumors come to anything, and nobody comes to claim Felina. Because no one claims her, the Doons take Felina to the court house and get a permit to keep her for a year.
The Doons insist that Felina follow their rules while she’s living in their house. They clean her up by brushing her hair and giving her a bath, although she doesn’t want one. They cannot accommodate Felina’s taste for bat wing soup, so she has to eat what they serve. They also insist that she wear pajamas at night and sleep in bed instead of the closet. When Felina acts up, Mr. and Mrs. Doon sometimes threaten to spank her, but they never do. Instead, they explain to her that, sometimes adults know what’s better for a child than the child does. There are some things that they will let her decide for herself, but when they tell her that something is an “order”, she will have to do it for her own good. Reluctantly, Felina agrees.
During her year with the Doons, Felina has many new experiences, doing things that witches never do. She has to go to school, and she learns to read. She attends a birthday party. Felina plays some mean tricks at the party because she is upset that the other children have birthdays, and she doesn’t. Lucinda’s grandfather, who has accepted Felina as another grandchild, says that problem is easy to solve because Felina can have his birthday, which happens to be October 31. Felina thanks him, the first time she’s ever thanked anybody, and she also apologizes to the birthday girl for spoiling the party, the first time that she’s ever apologized to anybody.
Felina spends Thanksgiving and Christmas with the Doons. Before Christmas, Felina gets upset because a mean boy in the neighborhood tells her that she won’t get anything for Christmas because she’s just a bad little witch and that she’ll get whips and stones instead. Since Felina is sure that she won’t get presents for Christmas anyway, she acts out more. However, Felina does get presents for Christmas, and the Doons assure her that she’s not a bad child but a “dear little witch” and that they love her.
When Felina finally takes off her witch’s hat and lets the other children use it for a making a “snow witch”, she finally loses her witchiness and seems more like a regular little human girl. She doesn’t seem to mind this, discovering that she has other interests besides being a witch and that she likes living with a family that really cares about her. When Halloween comes again and Felina has the chance to return to the other witches, she decides to stay with the family she has grown to love and that really loves her.
My Reaction
I remember reading this book when I was a kid! It’s a good Halloween story, although much of it is set in November through New Year’s. The story speeds through much of Felina’s year with the Doons after January. Felina’s difficulties in learning to cope with family life as a little witch who has never experienced it before mostly take place over a few months, through the fall and winter.
In the end, the judge who grants the Doons the right to keep Felina permanently marvels over her transformation since he saw her the year before, thinking that it’s like magic. Felina being a witch adds a little magic to what is essentially the story of a foster child who hasn’t experienced love or a caring home before and acts out until she realizes that she is safe and loved, which is ultimately the “magic” that leads to her transformation. Felina doesn’t seem sad in the end to not return to the witches or even experiencing inner conflict in choosing between her old life and her new one. Being a witch was magical, but being among people has given her many new experiences, especially the experience of love and caring, which she never seemed to have among the witches. Nobody among the witches seemed to worry about whether or not she was healthy, celebrated her birthday as a special day, cared about her feelings, or encouraged her to consider the feelings of others.
Because, in the context of the story, Felina does turn out to be an actual young witch with real magic rather than merely a lost little girl pretending to be a witch, I remember being a little sad that she essentially gives up her magic and her original witchy personality when she becomes an ordinary little girl. She barely seems to remember that she ever was a witch. In the end, she even gives up her name to name herself after the members of the Doon family at her formal adoption, taking the name Mary Lucinda George. I thought that was a bit much. It made me feel almost like the Doons completely took over her personality in the end and that she became a little too much like another Lucinda rather than a more human version of herself. I would rather have seen her remain Felina but to keep the part about discovering that she has greater interests in life beyond being a witch and that her accomplishments as a human girl have a kind of magic to them.
Still, it is a nice story for Halloween about the magic of family love, and it does carry a sense of nostalgia. It isn’t a very long book or a difficult read, and it’s a charming story that’s great for any time.
