Spell Sweeper by Lee Edward Fodi (The Secret of Zoone) is a middle-grade magic school adventure that features a sassy and smart-mouthed heroine who wants to be recognized as a real wizard instead of as one who cleans up after them.
Seventh-grader Cara Moone attends Dragonsong Academy for the magically gifted, but she's not learning how to brew potions or cast spells. Rather, Cara is learning to clean up messes. Equipped with her trusty broom, she is a MOP, a Magical Occurrence Purger, who "sweeps" the spell dust left behind when "real" wizards do magic--real wizards like 15-year-old Harlee Wu, the "so-called Chosen One" and Cara's sworn enemy. "She's a star and I'm a set piece," Cara explains, believing that if she were like Harlee, "life would be so different.... So much better."
After one of Harlee's awe-inspiring magical feats, Cara is faced with sweeping a slime-oozing rift in the Field of Magical Matter, which is what wizards access when spellcasting. Though Cara closes it--by herself--Master Quibble, the MOP department head (who thinks Cara a "disobedient failure"), doesn't believe her. Worse yet, Cara is sure he won't believe her theory that Harlee is using an occuli--a forbidden magical talisman--to cast magic, which consequently harms the Field. But when more ruptures start appearing, the Wizard High Council assembles a team to investigate: Quibble; Cara; her fellow MOPs Zuki, a wisecracking three-tailed fox, and Gusto, a notorious rule-follower; and, of course, Harlee Wu. Cara, certain Harlee is causing the rifts, knows it's up to her to protect the Field: "For once, I'll be the star of the school."
Spell Sweeper is a genre-loyal magic school tale full of mischievous antics told from the point of view of a gutsy girl wizard who never lacks a comeback. Young readers acquainted with Harry Potter will recognize several references to the series, such as how the kids eat dinner at the Cranky Cauldron and enjoy drinking ginger beer. Daring leap-before-you-look moments, hilarious mishaps ("The broom ends up standing on its head, my pink unicorn underwear dangling from it like a flag") and tense family drama add excitement, levity and depth. Interspersed between chapters are quirky guides on the "wizarding world" and tender reflections on Cara's most private memories. Together, Cara and her wizard companions show that people are not always who they seem on the outside and, if given the chance, they can truly shine. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer
Shelf Talker: A feisty tween girl wizard leads this lighthearted magic school story, in which brooms are used to sweep up the waste left behind by spells.