Witchlings

Published in 2022, Claribel A. Ortega’s Witchlings is a middle grade fantasy novel and the first installment of the Witchlings series. Twelve-year-old Seven Salazar and her friends Thorn and Valley live in the magical town of Ravenskill. The trio are deemed Spares after not being sorted into any of the town’s powerful covens, and they must complete a perilous task to earn their places or face a fate worse than death. The novel was an instant New York Times bestseller and explores themes like The Power of Cooperation and Trust, Self-Discovery in the Face of Adversity, and Systems of Exclusion and Disenfranchisement. Ortega’s other works include the New York Times bestselling middle grade fantasy novel Ghost Squad (2020) and the graphic novel Frizzy (2022), which won the Pura Belpré Award and the Eisner Award. 

Citations in this study guide refer to the e-book edition released by Scholastic Press in 2022.

Content Warning: The source material contains depictions of domestic abuse and child abuse.

Plot Summary

Seven Salazar lives in the magical town of Ravenskill with her parents and her baby brother, Beefy. Every year, the Black Moon Ceremony sorts the 12-year-old witchlings of the Twelve Towns into covens, and three Spares are always left over.