The Tragical Tale of Birdie Bloom by Temre Beltz

Birdie lives in an orphanage.  A nasty witch is in charge of it and she is getting them ready to sign their tragical contracts.  No one knows what happens to those that do except they aren't there anymore.  They know it's not anything good.

HarperCollins and Edelweiss let me read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published March 26th.

With good and evil witches, a dragon and other odd things, this tale is a fun fantasy to read.  It has enough smelly incidents to amuse the young adults and there's action all the way through.

They're not allowed to have pets but one girl does.  The witch in charge tries to destroy him but the other tragicals help save him.

Birdie goes to visit the witch in the Dead Forest hoping for help.  They visit but the witch isn't interested in helping.  Birdie sends her a letter when she gets back to the orphanage and tells her she'd like to be her friend.  The witch is astounded!

As Birdie tries to make the tragicals friends (definitely not allowed) and they start talking to each other (also forbidden), the witch decides to make an example out of her.  She's going to put her in the drowning bucket.  That will end her.  But killing Birdie isn't that easy...

This was a fun read with lots of excitement built in.  I enjoyed it.