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Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William Mckinley, And Me, Elizabeth
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William Mckinley, And Me, Elizabeth
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William Mckinley, And Me, Elizabeth
Ebook124 pages1 hour

Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William Mckinley, And Me, Elizabeth

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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2017 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved classic Jennifer, Hecatate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is an only child, new in town, and the shortest kid in her class. She’s also pretty lonely, until she meets Jennifer. Jennifer is...well, different. She’s read Macbeth. She never wears jeans or shorts. She never says “please” or “thank you.” And she says she is a witch.

It’s not always easy being friends with a witch, but it’s never boring. At first an apprentice and then a journeyman witch, Elizabeth learns to eat raw eggs and how to cast small spells. And she and Jennifer collaborate on cooking up an ointment that will enable them to fly. That’s when a marvelous toad, Hilary Ezra, enters their lives. And that’s when trouble starts to brew.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 24, 2011
ISBN9781442439696
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William Mckinley, And Me, Elizabeth
Author

E. L. Konigsburg

E.L. Konigsburg is the only author to have won the Newbery Medal and a Newbery Honor in the same year. In 1968, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler won the Newbery Medal and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth was named a Newbery Honor Book. Almost thirty years later she won the Newbery Medal once again for The View from Saturday. Among her other acclaimed books are Silent to the Bone, The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, and The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World.

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Reviews for Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William Mckinley, And Me, Elizabeth

Rating: 3.7 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "All year long she was a witch, disguised as a perfectly normal girl"By sally tarbox on 1 May 2018Format: PaperbackLast read this aged about 8!! But bits of it still come back almost 50 years on...Written in 1967, the story is narrated by lonely new-kid-in-town Elizabeth; walking to school on her own, she encounters the mysterious Jennifer sitting in a tree. A fellow student - and also something of an outsider- Jennifer has created a witch's persona for herself. The magic powers she attributes to herself allow her to look on, with a secret smile, as the 'in-crowd' (centred around Cynthia) do their thing.Under Jennifer's tutelage, Elizabeth begins training as a journeyman witch. Spells, potions, a toad, a cauldron... all played out against school and home life.Some kids' books don't work when you read them as an adult...but this is still a great read!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Is Elizabeth's new neighbor really a witch?

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This story is about a lonely little girl, Elizabeth whose family just moved to an apartment before the start of school. The only girl she knows who lives nearby is not interested in being her friend. She meets an eccentric girl, Jennifer who promises to train her how to be a witch. Jennifer has different tasks Elizabeth has to do like not eating certain foods. Elizabeth is confused by Jennifer and really wants to be her friend, but Jennifer doesn't really know how to be a friend. At the end of the book, they become real friends. I thought the book was okay-
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read this book a long time ago, as a lonely little kid. I loved it so much. I was so jealous of the main characters, and their friendship.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This seems to be a slightly abridged version of "Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth"? It's not stated that Elizabeth is new to town and I recall no mention of William McKinley.

    It's a cute book and I recall it fondly from when I read it as a kid but reading it now I feel sorry for Cynthia, the girl who Elizabeth claims is so mean and so revels in all the tricks played on her: from this distance I see very little evidence of Cynthia's meanness, certainly not enough to justify what amounts closely to bullying from Jennifer and Elizabeth.

    Nor is Jennifer, the hero to Elizabeth's worship, overly admirable, though one does sense that she's hiding an even more desperate loneliness than Elizabeth. So it's a relief that their unhealthy relationship of most of the book seems to give way to a more equal and real friendship at the end.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    About the development of the friendship between the new girl and a very smart and confident loner; both very interesting personalities. The story moves along slowly and what I perceived as aspects of theme were subtle. I wonder how widespread enjoyment of this story would be as it took a while to sink in.

    This was a very different kind of story from other young childrens' books that I've read. Not as much fun as the recently read Anastasia Krupnik. The interest it held seemed more a curiosity about what was to come rather than what was happening. Also of interest was that I liked the book more and more over the 24 hours after I finished it then I did at the moment I finished. If this were a more complex rating system I'd have to give this more thought but it definitely reached 3-1/2 stars so it gets rounded to 4.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I have adored several of Konigsburg's books, but this is not one of them. I remembered it fondly from my youth and picked it up at a Friends of the Library sale, but I found that it hasn't held up particularly well- at least to my eye.

    Jennifer is intriguing but never explained to my satisfaction. There is a paucity of any sort of description in the book- I was longing for more of a sense of place. The witchcraft training is fairly interesting, but the ending falls entirely flat and is unsatisfying in every single way.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Koningsburg writes with her usual flair and style creating some very unique and complex characters. The story is a bit of a slow pace particularly at the beginning but worth persevering through.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The title of this book is what grabbed me first. It was a very quick read, and quite funny. It reminded me a bit of Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Headless Cupid (highly recommended, btw), in that it's about children who have/pretend to have magic. Elizabeth is a very lonely girl who becomes an apprentice witch to Jennifer, who is also obviously in need of a friend. I thought the description of their relationship was realistic, and the book, written in the late 60s, is only slightly dated.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A nice little juvenile novel about a new kid at school who gets recruited to be an apprentice witch. Is Jennifer a real witch? Will the flying ointment really work? and How on earth does Jennifer walk perfectly straight with her eyes stuck to the sky? Elizabeth embraces Jennifer's oddness and along the way learns all of her little secrets. I also like the way she doesn't even mention Jennifer's skin color until halfway through the book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A young girl, Elizabeth, at a new school becomes friends with another girl, Jennifer, who is a witch and promises to train Elizabeth as a witch as well. Jennifer, Elizabeth and Elizabeth's nemesis are described in a believable way, but are not easy to picture, the rest of the characters have very little description or development. The plot is interesting at the beginning but loses focus and has a twist to try and liven up the end. The setting is a small town with very little detail and in the early to mid-twentieth century . Overall this is an okay book, but the setting is a bit old for todays reader and while it could be included in a public library it does not seem to be a necessary addition to the collection.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Elizabeth has moved to a new town and is having trouble fitting in when she meets Jennifer- a self proclaimed witch. Jennifer promises to make Elizabeth into a witch too, if she follows certain practices. Elizabeth and Jennifer form a close, secret friendship, which is broken when Elizabeth lets their pet toad go rather than be put into flying ointment. When Elizabeth figures out a little bit more of Jennifer, Jennifer comes back and their friendship is renued on more normal terms.

Book preview

Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William Mckinley, And Me, Elizabeth - E. L. Konigsburg

To Paul, Laurie, and Ross for loving a witch

1

I FIRST MET JENNIFER ON my way to school. It was Halloween, and she was sitting in a tree. I was going back to school from lunch. This particular lunch hour was only a little different from usual because of Halloween. We were told to dress in costume for the school Halloween parade. I was dressed as a Pilgrim.

I always walked the back road to school, and I always walked alone. We had moved to the apartment house in town in September just before school started, and I walked alone because I didn’t have anyone to walk with. I walked the back way because it passed through a little woods that I liked. Jennifer was sitting in one of the trees in this woods.

Our apartment house had grown on a farm about ten years before. There was still a small farm across the street; it included a big white house, a greenhouse, a caretaker’s house, and a pump painted green without a handle. The greenhouse had clean windows; they shone in the sun. I could see only the roof windows from our second floor apartment. The rest were hidden by trees and shrubs. My mother never called the place a farm; she always called it THE ESTATE. It was old; the lady who owned it was old. She had given part of her land to the town for a park, and the town named the park after her: Samellson Park. THE ESTATE gave us a beautiful view from our apartment. My mother liked trees.

Our new town was not full of apartments. Almost everyone else lived in houses. There were only three apartment buildings as big as ours. All three sat on the top of the hill from the train station. Hundreds of men rode the train to New York City every morning and rode it home every night. My father did. In the mornings the elevators would be full of kids going to school and fathers going to the train. The kids left the building by the back door and ran down one side of the hill to the school. The fathers left the building by the front door and ran down the other side of the hill to the station.

Other kids from the apartment chose to walk to school through the little woods. The footsteps of all of them for ten years had worn away the soil so that the roots of the trees were bare and made steps for walking up and down the steep slope. The little woods made better company than the sidewalks. I liked the smells of the trees and the colors of the trees. I liked to walk with my head way up, practically hanging over my back. Then I could see the patterns the leaves formed against the blue sky.

I had my head way back and was watching the leaves when I first saw Jennifer up in the tree. She was dressed as a Pilgrim, too. I saw her feet first. She was sitting on one of the lower branches of the tree swinging her feet. That’s how I happened to see her feet first. They were just about the boniest feet I had ever seen. Swinging right in front of my eyes as if I were sitting in the first row at Cinerama. They wore real Pilgrim shoes made of buckles and cracked old leather. The heel part flapped up and down because the shoes were so big that only the toe part could stay attached. Those shoes looked as if they were going to fall off any minute.

I grabbed the heel of the shoe and shoved it back onto the heel of that bony foot. Then I wiped my hands on my Pilgrim apron and looked up at Jennifer. I didn’t know yet that she was Jennifer. She was not smiling, and I was embarrassed.

I said in a loud voice, which I hoped would sound stout red but which came out sounding thin blue, You’re going to lose that shoe.

The first thing Jennifer ever said to me was, Witches never lose anything.

But you’re not a witch, I said. You’re a Pilgrim, and look, so am I.

I won’t argue with you, she said. Witches convince; they never argue. But I’ll tell you this much. Real witches are Pilgrims, and just because I don’t have on a silly black costume and carry a silly broom and wear a silly black hat, doesn’t mean that I’m not a witch. I’m a witch all the time and not just on Halloween.

I didn’t know what to say, so I said what my mother always says when she can’t answer one of my questions. I said, You better hurry up now, or you’ll be late for school.

Witches are never late, she said.

But witches have to go to school. I wished I had said something clever.

I just go to school because I’m putting the teacher under a spell, she said.

Which teacher? I asked. "Get it? Witch teacher?" I laughed. I was pleased that now I had said something clever.

Jennifer neither laughed nor answered. But I was sure she’d got it. She looked at me hard and said, Give me those three chocolate chip cookies, and I’ll come down and tell you my name, and I’ll walk the rest of the way to school with you.

I wasn’t particularly hungry for the cookies, but I was hungry for company, so I said, Okay, and reached out my hand holding the cookies. I wondered how she could tell that they were chocolate chips. They were in a bag.

As she began to swing down from the branches, I caught a glimpse of her underwear. I expected that it would look dusty, and it did. But that was not why it was not like any underwear I had ever seen. It was old fashioned. There were buttons and no elastic. She also had on yards and yards of petticoats. Her Pilgrim dress looked older than mine. Much older. Much, much older. Hers looked ancient. Of course, my Pilgrim costume was not new either. I had worn it the year before, but then I had been in a different grade in a different school. My cousin had worn the costume before that. I hadn’t grown much during the year. My dress was only a little short, and only a little tight, and only a little scratchy where it was pinned, and it was only absolutely uncomfortable. In other words, my costume was a hand-me-down, but Jennifer’s was a genuine antique.

After Jennifer touched the ground, I saw that she was taller than I. Everybody was. I was the shortest kid in my class. I was always the shortest kid in my class. She was thin. Skinny is what she really was. She came toward my hand and looked hard at the bag of cookies.

Are you sure you didn’t bite any of them? she demanded.

Sure I’m sure, I said. I was getting mad, but a bargain’s a bargain.

Well, she said, taking one cookie out of the bag, My name is Jennifer. Now let’s get going. As she said going, she grabbed the bag with the other two cookies and started to walk.

Wait up, I yelled. A bargain’s a bargain. Don’t you want to know my name?

I told you witches are never late, but I can’t be responsible for you yet . . . Elizabeth.

She knew my name already! She walked so fast that I was almost convinced that she was a witch; she was practically flying. We got to school just as the tardy bell began to ring. Jennifer’s room was a fifth grade just off the corridor near the entrance, and she slipped into her classroom while the bell was still buzzing. My room was four doors further down the hall, and I got to my room after the bell had stopped.

She had said that witches are never late. Being late felt as uncomfortable as my tight Pilgrim dress. No Pilgrim had ever suffered as much as I did. Walking to my seat while everyone stared at me was awful. My desk was in the back of the room; it was a long, long walk. The whole class

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