For younger fans of Witchlings and Eva Evergreen comes a light-hearted and whimsical middle grade fantasy about a young girl who must save her witch aunt from an uncommonly voracious hat.

Where dragons take flight, through the dark of the night. Where the fire ignites, you will find the light.

Aunt Cauldroneyes is always looking into cauldrons. She’s found everything from giggling moons to troll nose rings, but when she looks inside a purple cauldron one stormy night, she finds a girl with blue freckles.

The old witch raises the girl and names her Spella. They live in Hungry Snout Forest in a crooked house with doors enchanted to smell like chocolate. In the attic full of floating fabric and biting buttons, Aunt Cauldroneyes teaches Spella how to make magical hats for creatures like unicorns and dragons, giants and goblins.

When Spella turns eight, she receives an invitation to Dragon’s Knob, a school for wand witchery and wizardry. But on the very night Spella is set to leave, a stranger appears with a growling hat that swallows Aunt Cauldroneyes and steals her away!

To rescue her aunt, Spella must go up into a sky full of dragons and to her new school. With protesters outside the gates threatening the school’s academic freedom and a deepening mystery within the walls, Spella and her new friend Tolden are thrust into the mystery of her aunt’s disappearance and a long-buried secret hidden somewhere in the school.

Tiffany McDavid is an Ohio native whose writing is inspired by the rolling hills and woods of the land she knows. Drawing from her Cherokee heritage, she is a poet, novelist, and visual artist. Her debut novel, The Summer That Melted Everything, won The Guardian’s Not the Booker prize and the Ohioana Readers’ Choice Award. Her novel Betty was an international bestseller and a Friends of American Writers Chicago, the Society of Midland Authors, Nautilus Book, and Ohioana Library Readers’ Choice Award winner. She lives with six cats and a dog surrounded by the trees and wildlife that she loves. When not writing, she may be found in the garden or walking in the woods.

Ayesha L. Rubio was born in Madrid, Spain, one cold evening in February. Like many children, she loved to draw. Unfortunately for her family, any surface was an empty canvas for her. One day her grandfather taught her to draw horses and use paper instead of furniture or walls. Years later, she studied fine arts in Spain and England and began to work as an illustrator and writer, collaborating with publishers worldwide. Visit her online at AyeshaLRubio.com.