Children’s book about a witch and her seven daughters’ trip to Scotland helps kids learn to celebrate differences
Miranda the witch’s daughter, Mimi, is half-cat half-human. Mimi is a girly girl and she is excited to start school and wear the amazing school uniform with a grey pleated skirt and a bowler hat. A few weeks after starting school Mimi starts to eat less and less and one day she locks herself in the bathroom and shaves off her fur, so that she looks like the other children. Miranda the witch is desperate to help her daughter.
Mimi asks her mum to take her to Scotland, in search of a mystical creature called Nessie. Mimi hopes that Nessie can teach her how to become invisible and hide from her unkind classmates. Mimi, her mum and her sisters take a magical trip across Scotland where the family ends up rediscovering themselves and finding Nessie’s husband.
As a mum of two, Sibel Beadle is no stranger to creating impromptu stories for bedtime. It wasn’t until she was going through her own divorce, and her daughters went away with their father on holiday for the first time without her, that she was prompted to write her ideas down —but not in the traditional sense. She bought her eldest child a mobile phone and every night she would type and send a few paragraphs of an imaginary story for comfort.
Sibel’s stories feature characters with whom her children can identify and learn from, rather than unrealistic fairy princesses. Sibel grew up in a half-Muslim, half-Christian family with a Swiss mum and a Turkish father. Her childhood is filled by memories of having problems on both sides since she neither fit into Swiss society nor Turkish society. That’s why in her book series, Witchy Travel Tales, Sibel created a character named Mimi who is half-cat and half-human who suffers because she doesn’t fit into society. The character is charming, and kids can relate to her, independent of their ethnic background, nationality, or religious origins.
Imaginative and adventurous, the fourth book in the series, Nessie’s Husband, is the perfect next read for children aged 5+ and their extended families. The book indoctrinates the idea of anti-bullying and anti-racism in children in a none lecturing and child appropriate manor.
