The Worst Witch

Written by: Jill Murphy

First line: Miss Cackles Academy for Witches stood at the top of a high mountain surrounded by a pine forest.

Why you should read this book: Mildred Hubble is studying to be a witch, but she's the type of student who can't seem to ever get anything right, from remembering potion ingredients to teaching a cat to ride a broomstick to keeping her shoes tied. It doesn't help that her teachers don't expect her to amount to anything and one of her classmates is intentionally trying to get her into trouble. Sure that she's about to get expelled for her latest screw-up, which isn't really her fault, Mildred decides to run away, with very interesting results.

Why you shouldn't read this book: While characters from the book are rendered quite faithfully in the Netflix series of the same name, the plots are quite different, with the modern adaptation telling the story in much greater depth, and with much more interesting conflict.