Baggin' a Dragon: Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

Award-winning rhymster Julia Donaldson charmingly reworks two old folktale motifs, the "always room for one more" strand and the "Brementown musicians" strand, to come up with an original witch story, Room on the Broom, that is a surefire treat for picture book listeners.

A dapper red-haired witch, decked out in a purple skirt, red shirt, and yellow polka-dotted hairbow swinging from her long braid, takes off into a windy twilight sky with her ginger-striped cat and cauldron aboard. When the witch's tall hat blows away, she makes an emergency landing to search for it. She fails, but a spotted dog soon bounds up with the hat and hitches a ride on the broom.

He dropped it politely,
then eagerly said,
(As the witch pulled the hat
firmly down on her head),
"I am a dog, as keen as can be,
Is there room on the broom
for a dog like me?"

With the dog joyfully on board, the clutzy witch proceeds to lose her hairbow and then her wand, which are found by a hitchhiking bird and frog who also take their seats on the broom.

As the loaded broom struggles over the mountains, it suddenly snaps in two, and the frog, bird, dog, cat, and cauldron tumble down into a bog while the witch flies on. As her broom fragment loses altitude, the witch is menaced by a opportunistic fire-breathing dragon who chases her until she goes to ground.

But as the hungry dragon gloats over his expected supper, the four animals rise out of a swampy ditch, draped in mucky mud, as a four-headed, winged and fearfully fierce monster:

It was tall, dark, and sticky,
and feathered and furred.
It had four frightful heads,
it had wings like a bird.
And its terrible voice,
when it started to speak,
Was a yowl and a growl
and a croak and a shriek.
It dripped and it squelched
as it strode from the ditch,
And it said to the dragon,
"Buzz off!--
THAT'S MY WITCH!"

With the dragon banished, the unflappable witch turns her attention to the broom situation. Into her cauldron go a lily, a con, a twig, and a bone from the four friends, and with a "Iggety, ziggety, zaggety, ZOOM!," the witch conjures up a much more commodious conveyance for her entourage.

"Yes," cried the witch,
and they all clambered on.
The witch tapped the broomstick and
whoosh! they were gone.

Alex Scheffler, who also teamed with Donaldson on their prize-winning The Gruffalo, provides witty illustrations of a cheery witch and her happy hitchhikers which keep the story moving along without a hitch. Pair this one with The Hallow-Wiener for a sure-fire Halloween treat.