Chil­dren’s

Bras & Broomsticks

Sarah Mly­nows­ki
  • Review
By – August 20, 2012

Already the author of suc­cess­ful chick lit” titles like Milkrun, Fish­bowl, and Mon­key Busi­ness, Sarah Mly­nowk­si tries her hand at the boom­ing busi­ness of writ­ing for teenage girls with Bras & Broom­sticks. The results are breezy, fun­ny and just a lit­tle poignant, with an acute ren­di­tion of teenage pre­oc­cu­pa­tions like pop­u­lar­i­ty, pim­ples, bra size, school dances, and com­pli­cat­ed fam­i­ly dynam­ics. Mlynowski’s adult nov­els have been praised as out­stand­ing among the many books about sin­gle 20-some­things. Sim­i­lar­ly, Bras & Broom­sticks offers a fresh twist on chick lit for teenagers. Our hero­ine, Rachel Wein­stein, is not a witch — but her moth­er and lit­tle sis­ter Miri are. Her moth­er has cho­sen not to prac­tice mag­ic; Miri, how­ev­er, is younger, new­ly aware of her pow­ers, and high­ly sug­gestible. So the sis­ters turn their atten­tion to pre­vent­ing their father’s wed­ding to Jen­nifer, their Soon To Be Step-Mon­ster (STB for short). At the same time, Rachel con­vinces Miri to help her out in her bid to join the high-school A‑list, reclaim her best friend Jew­el, and snag the boy of her dreams. Nat­u­ral­ly, all does not go as planned. Rachel, who is not only wit­ty, self-dep­re­cat­ing, well-inten­tioned, and bril­liant at math, but also giv­en to self­ish­ness and pri­or­i­tiz­ing the wrong things, learns some impor­tant lessons about true friends, true love, and the lim­its of get­ting what you want. 

When Rachel learns about her family’s mag­i­cal pow­ers, she quips, Mom, you know you’re Jew­ish, right? I don’t think there’s such a thing as a Jew­ish witch.” But being Jew­ish is not cen­tral to the sto­ry. (There’s even a scene where Rachel eats lob­ster with her Jew­ish STB’s fam­i­ly.) Yet this off­hand Judaism can be con­sid­ered a mer­it in itself for Jew­ish teenagers able to iden­ti­fy them­selves with the hero­ine in a thor­ough­ly main­stream nov­el. Although there is a roman­tic plot­line, the con­tent of the nov­el is tame, entire­ly appro­pri­ate for a twelve-year-old. All in all, Bras & Broom­sticks is fast-paced, enter­tain­ing read­ing that teenage girls, ages 12 – 15, are sure to enjoy. 

Phoebe Sorkin, who grad­u­at­ed from Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, works in the edi­to­r­i­al depart­ment of Lit­tle, Brown and Com­pa­ny Books for Young Readers.

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