BroomMates: A Brewing Boundary Battle

Two “witchy mismatched sisters” learn to tolerate each other’s differences in this rhyming tale that pits glitter against gloom. Tasked with sharing “broom and room,” the pale-skinned siblings struggle to accept each other’s tastes: “One liked colors, one liked black, they never could agree.// Matilda gathered songbirds, and Malin dead debris.” After a magic-amplified dispute about the best bedroom decor wreaks havoc on their mutual space and belongings, their differing desires meet, at last, in the middle. Electric hues give a punk vibe to Ecenarro’s drawings of the siblings facing off and then coming together, while bits of pop culture tucked throughout (a poster of Taylor Swift look-alike “T. Sweep”) make the quarrelsome sisters feel contemporary. Though the sibs seem to reach consensus more by mistake than through deliberate effort, Marie and Reeves Sturgis succeed in showing the particular magic that is compromise. A character-drawing tutorial concludes. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)