The Little Leftover Witch: Florence Laughlin’s Charming Halloween Story

Florence Laughlin’s The Little Leftover Witch begins with a Halloween mishap and grows into a story about what a child needs to feel at home. First published in 1960, the book follows Lucinda Doon as she welcomes Felina, a young witch whose broken broom has left her stranded among humans. Magic sets the story in motion, but the Doon family’s patience and affection become its real source of change.

A witch without a way home

Lucinda discovers Felina outside her window after waking to the sound of someone trying not to cry. Felina explains that without her broom she can’t fly back to the other witches before sunrise. She’ll have to remain on the ground and live among ordinary people for a year.

Lucinda wants to help. Her mother’s broom, the family mops and the vacuum are all put to the test, but none can fly. With no solution for the night, Lucinda offers Felina her bed. Felina prefers the dark closet, and Lucinda lets her stay there until morning.

When Felina meets the Doons, she makes clear that a helicopter won’t solve the problem: witches can fly only on Halloween, and only with a magic broom. She’s stuck until the next Halloween. Lucinda is delighted at the prospect of keeping her, while her parents quietly weigh what caring for a grouchy, bewildered child will involve.

The adults don’t appear to take Felina’s claim of being a witch entirely literally, even as they call her one. They make inquiries in case someone is searching for her, and Mr. Doon, who works for a newspaper, places a notice. Rumors circulate about how Felina came to be alone, but nobody arrives to claim her. The Doons eventually arrange to care for her for a year.

Learning the rules of family life

Felina’s adjustment is full of small clashes. The Doons wash and brush her, serve meals she would never choose—bat wing soup is out of the question—and expect her to wear pajamas and sleep in a bed. She’d rather keep her own habits. When she resists, her parents explain that some decisions are theirs to make for her well-being, while other matters can be left to her. They sometimes threaten a spanking, but never carry it out. Their steady insistence on care and boundaries is part of how Felina learns what living with a family means.

School brings another set of unfamiliar experiences, including learning to read. At a birthday party, Felina plays cruel tricks because she resents that the other children have birthdays and she doesn’t. Lucinda’s grandfather responds with a generous offer: she can share his birthday, October 31. Felina thanks him, something she has never done before, and apologizes to the birthday girl for ruining the celebration—another first.

Thanksgiving and Christmas give Felina more time to experience the Doons’ traditions. Before Christmas, a mean neighborhood boy tells her she’ll receive whips and stones because she’s bad. Convinced that he must be right, Felina acts out. The presents she receives, and her family’s assurance that she is a dear little witch whom they love, challenge the idea that she’s beyond kindness or care.

What the story’s magic costs

As the months pass, the narrative moves quickly through much of Felina’s year, spending its most detailed stretch on her difficulties during fall and winter. By the next Halloween, she has new interests and a growing attachment to the people around her. When the other children use her witch’s hat to make a “snow witch,” she seems to lose her witchiness. She doesn’t appear troubled by the change. Given the chance to return to the witches, she chooses to remain with the Doons.

The reviewer’s affection for the book comes with a reservation about that ending. Felina is revealed to be a real witch with genuine magic, yet her transformation seems to ask her to leave much of that identity behind. At her formal adoption, she even takes a new name: Mary Lucinda George. The reviewer finds this too great a surrender, as though the Doons’ love has reshaped Felina so thoroughly that she becomes another Lucinda. A more satisfying ending, in this view, would let her keep her name and witchy self while discovering that human experiences offer their own kinds of wonder.

The book’s strongest idea still shines through: Felina changes because she is welcomed, protected and taught to consider other people’s feelings. The story suggests that the witches in her former life did not celebrate her birthday, look after her health or show much concern for her emotions. With the Doons, she encounters those ordinary acts of attention for the first time. The judge who later sees her transformation calls it like magic; for the reviewer, the more persuasive magic is the security of being loved.

Short and accessible, The Little Leftover Witch makes a pleasing Halloween read, even though much of its story unfolds through the holidays that follow. Its nostalgic charm suits younger readers, families and anyone looking for a gentle seasonal story. Felina’s choice at the end is simple; the more lasting question is how to let a child find belonging without asking her to give up everything she was before.