The Worst Witch Saves the Day by Jill Murphy

Mildred Hubble, who has the reputation as the "worst witch in school" is back at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches, planning to redeem her reputation as she enters third form. Mildred, armed with a Broomstick Proficiency Certificate, a lovely new flying broom from her mum, and a summer of mastering insect transformation spells, is determined that this year will be different.

But for Mildred, good intentions don't seem to help. As she spruces herself up for her first all-school assembly, the styling brush she borrows from her friend Maud gets hopelessly entangled in her waist-long hair. Of course, the spiteful Ethel Hallow takes the opportunity to free the appliance by whacking it off, hair and all, leaving Mildred with half a crewcut on one side of her head. Unabashed, Ethel compounds the damage by hacking off the rest of Millie's hair haphazardly, leaving her with a waifish look that only her empathetic friend Enid can find fashionable.

Ethel, all sugary and apologetic, convinces Mildred to let her whip up a regrowth spell to return her hair to its original state, but when she rubs it into her remaining hair at bedtime, Mildred awakens later with a runaway regrowth problem. The long coils of regrowing locks threaten to engulf her, and her timid cat Tabby ends up dangling out the window by one rapidly lengthening lock several floors above the ground. Miss Hardbroom declares it a super-bad-hair day, and performs a spell to stop the regrowth and trim Mildred's hair back to its normal length.

At least her hair is back to normal as the students head out to their first flying class with their strange new teacher Miss Granite, but Mildred's cat Tabby is almost too shaken to board the broom. When he falls onto the steep tile roof of the teacher's residential hall, Miss Granite snatches him in through her window and declares that she plans to keep him until Mildred shapes up her flying performance.

Despite the best advice of her friends, Mildred decides to sneak into Miss Granite's room to retrieve poor Tabby late at night. But when Miss Granite catches her inside, she reveals that she is the evil twin of Miss Cackle in disguise to execute a takeover of the Academy and locks Mildred in her dark closet. Lucky for Mildred, she's mastered those insect transformations, and quickly reciting a spell, she changes herself into an ant and slips out under the door to rouse her friends and find a way to save Miss Cackle's Academy before it is too late.

In The Worst Witch Saves the Day (Worst Witch), her latest in the Worst Witch series, Jill Murphy extends her kid-pleasing stories of a student witch who perseveres despite her ineptitude at all things witchy. It's an endearing combination of the wizard academy and the girls' boarding school story, with both loyal friends and a spiteful teacher's pet of a student witch who gives Mildred as many problems as does her natural-born clumsiness. Rounding out the colorful cast of characters are the kindly, wise headmistress, Miss Cackle, and a tough drill sergeant of a third form teacher, Mrs. Hardbroom. Mildred is a good-hearted, pigtailed youngster, a bit of a klutz, but plucky, resourceful, and always loyal to her school--if not to its every rule and convention. Murphy's old-fashioned and charming black and white ink illustrations add cozy humor to her easy-going text.

Other books in this British import series include The Worst Witch (Young Puffin Story Books), The Worst Witch at School (Worst Witch,) The Worst Witch in Trouble (Worst Witch), The Worst Witch Strikes Again: 2 (Young Puffin Books), Adventures of the Worst Witch, and A Bad Spell for the Worst Witch: 9 (Young Puffin Books).