YA witches for the 2019 win. Again!

I’ve talked about These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling a bunch over at Book Riot, so I won’t rehash here – but I will talk about a book that came out in September and definitely belongs to the same family: The Babysitters Coven by Kate Williams (Delacorte Press, 2019).

Esme’s life is difficult in a great many ways, but she finds solace in fashion and babysitting. The former she inherited from her mother, at least the mother she knows from pictures, and the latter… well, she’s not sure why she loves caring for kids so much, but earning money is so much easier when you enjoy your job. When Esme turns 17, however, a new challenge arises: she starts moving objects with her mind.

Enter Cassandra Heaven, the beautiful new girl at school, the type of girl who normally wouldn’t give Esme the time of day and yet seems to be actively courting her as a friend. Confused but excited, Esme invites Cassandra to join her and best friend Janis in their babysitting operation and Cassandra agrees – though it soon becomes evident she’s never in her life been responsible for a child. And, as it turns out, Cassandra is a pyromancer, a new ability she too discovered on her 17th birthday.

The mystery deepens when Cassandra shows Esme a picture of her mother, killed in a car crash and Esme’s mother, currently an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital together. Neither of them knows what the link between the two women is, so they go digging only to find it’s a link they also share: they’re Sitters and it’s their job to protect Earth from demons who manage to make their way through a Portal.

Buffy jokes abound, along with pop culture references to designers, bands, and babysitter slasher flicks in this novel that borrows from other media but, through some writerly alchemy, becomes something entirely its own. At its heart, The Babysitters Coven is a story about girls who previously felt powerless finding out how powerful they actually are. But, at the same time, they come to understand that having power doesn’t mean using it indiscriminately to get what you want.

In short, it’s very much a story that parallels the growth and maturity that happens as teens transition from high school to college and then to adulthood, a road with at least as many bumps as training to be a witch charged with protecting humanity in a town where football is more important than training saviors.

I appreciate that Williams has crafted a magical system with consequences, one in which using magic to solve problems may provide the witch with instant gratification but will also certainly bite her in the butt down the line. Understanding consequences is such a huge part of growing up and often, fictional analogues are much more successful teaching tools than lectures or “when I was your age”  tales of woe. At the same time, having that magical skill, and to take the analogy further, any skill that gives you joy, does make you special, which, in turn, makes any consequences tolerable. Multidimensional thinking, shades of gray in life.

And while the main through-plot is funny and delightful and magical, Williams doesn’t shy away from complex and difficult “real-world” issues: Esme’s mom is a patient in a psychiatric facility, and her father, who loves them very much, is struggling as a single working dad and the spouse of someone with an illness that may never improve. Esme doesn’t feel like she fits in at school, is bullied, and finds a gulf opening between her and her best friend she doesn’t completely understand. She’s desperate to go to design school but neither her grades nor her family’s financial situation is likely to allow it.

Cassandra’s parents are gone, leaving her to be raised by her brother, only a year older than she is, without money for anything beyond the basics and struggling to repair a house left in ruins. Which, again, is life.

Sometimes we’re afraid or sad or angry or happy while we’re simultaneously waiting for The Rise of Skywalker trailer and to hear when your appointment for a jaw biopsy is going to be, as just one totally not-made-up example.

Everything is so big in childhood and adolescence, so all consuming, that adults often forget we need to teach kids it’s okay, and in fact, necessary, to be more than one thing at a time without feeling shame or guilt.

Good lessons for teens. Good reminders for adults. A great story for everyone. Hope you enjoy The Babysitters Coven as much as I did.