Disclaimer: This is a little younger of a book than I normally read. Think 10-12 kind of age. I enjoyed it, but it was younger. TO THE AMAZON SUMMARY!
"Poppy may have inherited the family’s magical powers, but she would rather be a baker. How can she avoid the family business? Includes more than a dozen delectable recipes!
Ten-year-old Poppy, born to ordinary parents, inherits her famous Great Aunt Mabel’s genes—GAM was a famous witch. In Poppy’s world, witches work for good and are much valued, with powers both coveted and praised. But Poppy does not want to be a witch—she wants to be a baker, and she is extremely good at baking. Her parents insist Poppy follow in the footsteps of her great aunt, but Poppy has plans of her own.
Part magic, part adventure, and wholly delicious, this spirited story includes more than a dozen recipes readers—and budding bakers—can try at home." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
So, I'm going to ignore the summary because I can.
Poppy Pendle was born on the floor of a bakery, and upon her birth she ate a bag of almond cakes. Like the moment she popped out of the uterus (I was led to believe).
Here's another disclaimer; in order to enjoy the story, you've got to put aside all sorts of science and what not, because this world runs on magic weirdness. So it totally makes sense that a baby can eat cookies right away. I just imagined her as popping out as a toddler and the rest of the book went along easier with that mindset.
ANYWAYS.
So from an early age Poppy showed great accidental talent for magic by making things appear or what not; but her true passion was to bake. Her parents kept her from normal school and tried to discourage her baking as much as possible because she was magical. It is very rare to have magical talents, especially of Poppy's level.
Now Poppy went to a witch school starting when she was 7, but she was not allowed to attend ordinary school before that. There's a weird time flux because we see Poppy start school, but then it kind of jumps until she was 10 and you just have to go with it.
When she's 10, she gets all I WANT TO BAKE and her parents are like NO YOU'LL UNDERSTAND WHEN YOU'RE OLDER BLAH. Yeah, that's the relationship in a nutshell. Poppy is like but I want to do this, I do not want to be a witch and her mom laughs at her and talks about magic some more. Parents of the yea right there.
OFF TO SPOILER LAND RIGHT NOW.
So Poppy makes a normal friend as she's never been able to friend a girl at her school because they look down on her for wanting to bake and not do magic. She's also stupidly good at magic but hates every bit of it. She is not nearly wowed by magic as the rest of the world is.
So she makes a friend in Charlie who invites her over and she experiences a normal family experience with baking and being loved kind of deal and she wants to stay there so bad. But then her mother comes to pick her up and realizes they're not magic so she bans Poppy from seeing Charlie as she's a 'bad influence'.
Poppy makes the decision to run away and goes to the bakery where she was born (her mother never told her that story so she doesn't realize it) and the lady, Marie Cherie takes her in for a week or so and lets her sleep and bake and just be in the kitchen. Charlie comes to visit her and tells her that her parents hired a private investigator to find her and Poppy makes a few attempts to reassure them she's okay and happy. Marie Cherie is like LET ME TALK TO THEM and Poppy is like NO. And then her stupid aunt viv sees her one day in the shop and the parents come and get her and it's a giant mess.
One thing leads to another and Poppy is basically caged into her old life. She grows really resentful of the whole situation and ends up turning into a bad witch and turning people into stone. Then it becomes a mad rush to save Poppy from being evil.
It's definitely more of a children's story, but I quite enjoyed it. It was a nostalgic read for me I believe because I loved Eva Ibbotson's books growing up and the style of writing reminded me of her books a lot.
....
I'm good with this.
Happy reading!
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