The Return of the Christmas Witch
by Dan Murphy & Aubrey Plaza, Julia Iredale (Illustrator)
DETAILS: Series: The Christmas Witch, #2 Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers Publication Date: October 10, 2022 Format: Hardcover Length: 56 pg. Read Date: December 17, 2022
What’s The Return of the Christmas Witch About?
Kristtörn wakes from her frozen slumber to find a world she cannot recognize—it’s a dystopian world where the joy of Christmas is gone and everyone is left with an automated, sanitized, homogenized, corporation-run day of market-driven consumption. Santa is nowhere to be found—and many doubt he ever existed—in his place, we have the Kringle Corporation.
We get to spend time with one family—grandmother remembers Santa and longs for his return, but her grandchildren don’t (but aren’t fans of Kringle, either). Kristtörn watches the girl and the two strike up a relationship at a distance, and ultimately team up to take down the corporation and bring back Kristtörn’s brother.
That’s a sloppy job on my part, but it’ll do for these purposes. Murphy and Plaza tell it so much better.
The Artwork
On the whole, I’d just want to repeat what I said about the first book, so I will.
Iredale’s work struck me like a classic storybook, the kind of art that was in the books I read as a kid—especially the books that were old by the time I read them. It was fitting for the kind of story. It wasn’t knock-out gorgeous, and I think it would’ve hurt the book overall had it been. There’s some sharpness to the art—almost the kind of thing that would’ve been carved into wood.
It’s vibrant and I can’t imagine a kid who won’t want to pour over the pictures as much as the story.
So much for repeating—I did think this work wasn’t as well done as the previous book. There are a couple of illustrations that…sloppy isn’t the right word, but they don’t seem as finished. It felt like Iredale ran out of time and rushed one or two drawings/characters. That’s likely not right—and probably not that fair of me to say. But that was my impression. I doubt that any of the target audience will pick up on it (or care if they do), but it surprised me that I wasn’t as impressed with the art.
So, what did I think about The Return of the Christmas Witch?
This takes a darker turn than I expected from this story—the first book had a hint of this, and it’s not out of place, but I raised an eyebrow at the dystopia. That said—I thought it was a great choice, and offered a new take on the usual “over-commercialization of Christmas” and “we need to get back to the essence of the holiday” stories. But that’s what it is at its core—and I’m all for that kind of story.
I did think the ending felt a little rushed—like the authors ran into a hard page limit/word count. It wouldn’t have taken much more, but after the well-established set-up, I thought we needed a little more development to the magical ending.
The door is left open to one more book in the series—it’s maybe even suggested. If so, I’m totally on board for it. I can see the authors leaving it here, too—and I’d be okay with that.
The words-to-image ratio for this kind of book leans toward the words side, so that will limit some younger fans—but as long as there’s a willing adult around, I think this will satisfy fans of the first book.
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