Review: “Excuse Me... Are you a witch?” by Emily Horn, Pawel Pawlak

I’ve been pretty swamped lately and basically the only books I’ve finished are the “These make me feel good so I’ve read them 20 times,” books and childrens books. I’ll post later about my feel good books, this post is about a childrens book that my kids love. And to be honest I really like it too. “Excuse Me... Are you a witch?” is about a black cat named Herbert who doesn’t have any one to love him. One day, while hiding out in the library, Herbert comes across a book about witches. After he reads that witches love black cats he starts looking for a witch to love him. After a few misadventures he finds some witch school girls and their teacher at the library and gets to go back to the school with them. There is something in this book that really appeals to my youngest son (3 ½) because he has asked for it back to back. Meaning I just finished reading it and he wants to hear it again. This is rare. I don’t know if it’s because Herbert is a black cat, and so that ties into his feeling different from his family. (My son is African-American and the rest of us, although mixed race, can pass as white.) Or, if it’s about Herbert’s quest for someone to love him, playing into adoption issues. Or if he just likes the story. My guess is that it’s a little of each. I like the story and it’s not hard to read it thirty times, which is not the case with many children’s books. I highly recommend this book to families who have young transracially adopted children. If it is the racial and adoption issues my son is working out with the book, this book might just help your kids too.