The Best Witch in Paris by Lauren Crozier
Luna rides a battered old broom that keeps crashing itself into the school pond. She has a witch’s hat and wand and sometimes she’s quite good at magic, but she isn’t completely sure that she’s a real witch. She doesn’t have a familiar for one thing, and she doesn’t know where she came from—only that she was found by three witches who she now calls her aunts. When she swaps her moonstone ring for an Australian boobook owl in the Lost Forest, the mysterious bird seller makes her promise to keep the bird hidden for as long as she can. This is not easy when you live with very inquisitive aunts. And it’s not easy when you find out that the fearsome Madame Valadon, the Best Witch in Paris, is missing her boobook owl and she’s sure that Luna knows something about it.
Could it be that Luna has Madame Valadon’s boobook? Why then did the mysterious bird seller give it to Luna? Why did she say the bird belonged to her? A familiar can only belong to one witch, after all. Luna has lots of questions—the biggest one of all is who she really is.
Fun and funny and full of life, The Best Witch in Paris is a delightful story of courage and self-belief, with colourful characters, fabulous magic and a puzzling mystery at its core.
Published 3 September 2024| Publisher: Text Publishing | RRP: AUD$17.99
Buy it at: Dymocks | Abbey’s | QBD
My Blurb (3.5 / 5 stars)
What a fabulous cover! Along with the description of the book made me think that this was going to be a very fun read. And it was mostly a fun read with its own merit.
However, as an older reader who lived through and took part in the Harry Potter hullabaloo, I couldn’t help but finding similarities in this book to that series. I wouldn’t have minded a few because there were so much creative fun in HP that could be and probably have been adopted into many other books but there were just too many of those. I’ve taken a star off for that.
Nevertheless, I do believe HP series is somewhat dated now and today’s younger readers may not be as familiar with the series as me. Therefore, this book could be so much fun for them. The colourful characters (they all wear black because witches but very lively personalities), engaging mystery, and empowerment of young women make this novel a very charming read.
If there is a young person you know who does not like sad little orphan boy and find those books a little bit scary, I’d highly recommend to get them to try this one. This little orphan girl always manages to pull her big girl pants up and get on with it. There is also humour and the monsters are a lot less scary.
My thanks to Text Publishing gifting me a copy of this book in exchange of my honest thoughts
About the authors
Lauren Crozier won the 2023 Text Prize for her debut novel The Best Witch in Paris. She lives in Sydney with her partner and their two children.
Find author on: goodreads
Charlie Archbold is an educator and an award-winning writer. Her first novel, Mallee Boys, was a CBCA older readers honour book. Her first book in the Sugarcane Kids middle-grade series, The Sugarcane Kids and the Red-bottomed Boat, was shortlisted for the Text Prize and went on to win the Readings Children’s Prize and the Davitt Children’s Novel Award and was a CBCA notable book.
Emily Gale’s much-loved books include The Goodbye Year, The Other Side of Summer and its companion novel I Am Out with Lanterns, the Eliza Boom Diaries series, Steal My Sunshine and Girl, Aloud, as well as her middle-grade collaborations with friend and fellow author Nova Weetman, Elsewhere Girls and Outlaw Girls.
Nova Weetman is an acclaimed writer of many books for young adults and children. Her middle-grade novels include The Secrets We Keep, The Secrets We Share, Sick Bay, The Edge of Thirteen and The Jammer, as well as Elsewhere Girls and Outlaw Girls with Emily Gale.
Freya Marske lives in Australia, where she is yet to be killed by any form of wildlife. She writes stories full of magic, blood, and as much kissing as she can get away with, and she co-hosts the Hugo Award nominated podcast Be the Serpent. Her hobbies include figure skating and discovering new art galleries, and she is on a quest to try all the gin in the world.
Greg Woodland is an author, screenwriter and former director. Since 2000 he’s worked as a freelance script editor and consultant for film funding bodies and the Australian Writers’ Guild and taught screenwriting at Sydney film schools and universities. His first novel, The Night Whistler, was shortlisted for a 2021 Ned Kelly Award.
Winner of the Patrick White Literary Award, and three times shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, Carmel Bird is the author of eleven novels and eight collections of short fiction. Carmel grew up in Tasmania, and she has a wide reputation as a storyteller, essayist, editor and mentor.
Once upon a time, Sulari Gentill was a corporate lawyer serving as a director on public boards, with only a vague disquiet that there was something else she was meant to do. That feeling did not go away until she began to write. And so Sulari became the author of the Rowland Sinclair Mysteries: thus far, ten historical crime novels chronicling the life and adventures of her 1930s Australian gentleman artist, the Hero Trilogy, based on the myths and epics of the ancient world, and the Ned Kelly Award winning Crossing the Lines (published in the US as After She Wrote Hime). In 2014 she collaborated with National Gallery of Victoria to write a short story which was produced in audio to feature in the Fashion Detective Exhibition, and thereafter published by the NGV. IN 2019 Sulari was part of a 4-member delegation of Australian crime writers sponsored by the Australia Council to tour the US as ambassadors of Australian Crime Writing.
Sulari lives with her husband, Michael, and their boys, Edmund and Atticus, on a small farm in Batlow where she grows French Black Truffles and refers to her writing as “work” so that no one will suggest she get a real job.
Pamela Hart is my married name and The Soldier’s Wife was my first book under that name, inspired by my grandfather’s service as an ANZAC at Gallipoli (see 
Hayley Scrivenor is a former Director of Wollongong Writers Festival. Originally from a small country town, Hayley now lives and writes on Dharawal country and has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong on the south coast of New South Wales. Dirt Town is her first novel. An earlier version of the book was shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize and won the Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award.
Brendan Colley was born in South Africa. After graduating with a degree in education, he taught in the U.K. and Japan for eleven years before settling down in Australia in 2007. Winner of the University of Tasmania Prize for best new unpublished work in the 2019 Premier’s Literary Prizes, The Signal Line is his first novel. He lives in Hobart with his wife.
Tien's Blurb 