"Greek author Konstantinos V.E. Adamopoulos teaches Primary School in Athens and embarks on his publication of children’s books with this book – BADFREAKY THE CHERRY SNAKE AND THE INDECISIVE DRAGON – the second volume of his planned The Life of Badfreaky the Witch (the initial volume was BADFREAKY – THE MEANEST WITCH). His series is based on a dream involving the primary character who demanded he write her stories! The illustrations are the art of Leoni Katsarou and Georgia Dimitropoulou has translated the book from the Greek.

The author understands the world of make believe as is apparent in the manner in which he introduces his story for the 10 – 16 age group: ‘Once, a long time ago in a far, far away land, which nobody knows or has set foot on, lived the world’s meanest witch of all time. Badfreaky was her name and a pitch-black magpie would always be sitting on her shoulder From being very mean, she became very good, living through many adventures until she achieved what she wanted most in the world and all the stars.’

The adventure rendered is as follows: ‘After drinking the same magic potion which made her very bad, suddenly Badfreaky becomes very good. She begins a battle to achieve what she wants very most. The trials begin...A humongous monster eats her, a gigantic crab threatens her, huge pitch-black spiders want to cut her into pieces, disgusting cockroaches want to eat her alive, a ginormous snake, mad about cherries swallows her and bloodthirsty dragons want to burn her with the fire that comes out of their mouths! How will she and Kixy, her beloved friend, deal with all these dangers?’

An aspect of he author’s approach to youngsters books is his addition of references to reality. Example, ‘The dreadful wizard never managed anything with Badmagicinventormaker…Many years later, humans would use some of his inventions. They installed safety belts in cars, they wore helmets when riding motorcycles and fighter airplanes, and in this way, many lives were saved.’ Offering strong ideas along with an entertaining wild tale and hilarious prose makes Adamopoulos a new author to watch. Recommended. "