Review by Booklist Review
Grunhilda Blackheart has a lousy career as a witch. Her ancestors had plum positions, but she is stuck playing a hag at a Salem museum, and she gets fired for not being scary enough. What's a witch to do? Sign up to be a lunch lady, naturally. Her experience with putrid potions makes her the perfect fit for the school cafeteria, and she gets to be her bad self every day: Another day, another thousand cartons of curdled milk to hand out. I love this job. But when a distractible girl who is failing all her classes begs Grunhilda to make her a smartness potion, the crone begins to feel horror of horrors! sympathy. Against her wicked judgment, she helps the girl out, incurring the wrath of her sinister ancestry. Lucke's unique, scratchy figures are on grotesque backgrounds full of mottled greenish browns and splotches of food scraps and grease stains, a perfect match for Grunhilda's line of work. Though the action is sometimes tough to decipher in Lucke's loose style, Grunhilda is irresistibly charming.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Grunhilda the witch is out of work, but after hitting the classified ads, she secures a new gig in a school cafeteria. "Another day, another thousand cartons of curdled milk to hand out," says Grunhilda, grinning. "I love this job." Yes, Lucke's (Sneezenesia) take on the adventures of a cafeteria employee is basically the polar opposite of Jarrett J. Krosoczka's Lunch Lady books. From the olive, stain-splattered backgrounds to Lucke's scraggly-sketchy renderings and semi-grisly plot twists, this one's for kids who like their comedy (and their magic) dark. Worried that she's about to be revealed as a witch, Grunhilda, who's cut from the same cloth as Matilda's Miss Trunchbull, reluctantly agrees to create an intelligence potion for struggling student Madison. Thanks to interference from Grunhilda's undead witch ancestors, the potion turns Madison into a toad, and Grunhilda tries to set things right. "Was this Mexican yam dug in the dark?" she asks a grocer while gathering ingredients for an antidote. "It's certified fair trade, but I can't commit to dug in the dark," he replies. A wickedly funny start to this series. Ages 7-10. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-7-Bad business has left the witch Grunhilda with no choice; she must find a new job. Her limited skill set leaves her with few options, though, for "nobody really believes in magic anymore." On her first day as lunch lady for the local elementary school, her secret is discovered by an underachieving little girl who decides to blackmail her. Nonetheless, Grunhilda chooses to help, but her good intentions lead to trouble. Funny thing is, turning into a toad is the exact lesson Madison needs. Muted colours, irregular human designs, and brown, food-stained paper give the impression that something is a little bit off...just like a cafeteria lunch. This is quite a fitting look for a witch now serving her potions to school children. At first glance, this uncommon yet internally consistent style may deter children accustomed to the usual fare. However, given the chance, the misadventures of this witch will have no problem pulling readers in. VERDICT A quirky, sometimes murky, but always silly graphic novel tale.-Rachel Forbes, Oakville Public Library, Ontario, Canada (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A troubled student leads an evil lunch lady astrayat least temporarily.Though Grunhilda has recipes, inherited from her witch ancestors, for Hansel-and-Gretel pie and like delicacies, at Salem Elementary she limits herself to putting floor sweepings in the meatloaf and (at least according to student rumor) substituting legless spiders for blueberries. Moved to uncharacteristic pity by the pleas of Madison, a new student who's gotten off on such a wrong foot that she's being demoted a grade, Grunhilda concocts what she thinks is an Intelligence potion. Instead, it turns Madison into a toad. Now what? Lucke's cartoon panels are drawn on coarse brown paper that has been evocatively decorated with pencil shavings, ketchup, spatters of grease and less identifiable substances. They alternate between views of the matronly witch, struggling to make a go of it in a world that has lost its respect for her kind, and Madison, struggling to survive in a wetland (while developing a taste for bugs) until rescue in the form of an anti-potion can arrive. The humor is unapologetically black, and Grunhilda's concoctions are equally unashamedly disgusting. Truly, far too often school lunch ladies get a bad rap. In this case, it's justified, and stout-stomached readers who have always suspected the truth should enjoy seeing how. (Graphic novel. 9-11) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
