I received a copy of this book for a fair and honest review. I found this adorable. It is the first semester at Oakleaf Academy and Poppy is a little on edge. She has a lot of book knowledge but experience is all but zero. She meets friends and has a grumpy roommate. I enjoyed her taking the tests and discovering herself along the way. It is a cute adventure, but I did find it a little hurried along. I do understand this is a children's book. It is good for around 7 years old.

This was a very quick simple read with cute pictures throughout. I felt like everything was very rushed, but with this feeling like it's for beginning readers, this would be easy. I would say it would be good for first and second grade/ 6-8 year olds.
I attempted to read this with a 9 year old, however she quickly lost interest.

Early chapter books are a fun medium for developing readers and connecting with your child over more than just a short picture book. My kid and I love reading together, so I’m always looking for new things that interest both of us.


Oakleaf Academy is a new chapter book series that follows Poppy and her friends navigating everyday school life, new-found magic, and mysteries.


We thoroughly enjoyed the first two books in the series, which embrace friendship, diversity, and working through the everyday problems of growing up.


My kid keeps asking when the next one will come out, and I think that’s a good sign.

Thank you so much to Arcturus and Netgalley for the ebook to read and review.

It’s the first semester at Oakleaf Academy and the new sprites, brownies, pixies, fairies, leprechauns and gnomes are ready to learn the magic and get their sparks. They have four big magic tests to determine what their wand spark will be.

I really loved seeing how the magic spark got unlocked, with the students having to do different tests in each field and learning where their strengths really lie. It was interesting as each ones personality was so different and they each did well in the tests but only one would be stronger than another and give them the spark.

I liked that the friendship bloomed between the girls, Ivy, Poppy and Jessamy became friends instantly, but at first Azalea wasn’t interested in being friends with them but she eventually progressed and learnt that she can do more with friends at her side. It was really sweet having character development in the first book.

This is a great series for magic fans, for fairy fans and for fantasy fans. It’s a really easy and fun read, the characters are all really unique and the magic is different to any others I’ve read. I think it will be a great series that children will love and it comes with some absolutely wonderful illustrations throughout that I love looking at, the characters are all so unique and I loved seeing the visual of them in each picture.

I loved this book, I read it with a smile on my face.

Poppy is a small folk who lives in a humans library with her dad. She has been sent off to school to learn all small folk things. She meets friends there and learns all the different parts of the tests, but she can’t find her true talent. Until one day when they were having a midnight feast.

My little girl will love reading this book when it’s published, it’s cute, it’s funny with great illustrations.
Highly recommend. 5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy.

Review to come March 4th to my blog/goodreads.

In this book we go to a fun boarding school with smallfolk. The first book is all about Poppy and how she is getting used to magic. She has always lived with her dad in human library. And while her bookish knowledge on smallfolk and magic and powers is pretty huge, her own experience is zero. This is the first time she is seeing so many smallfolk and the first time she will really make friends. I was really rooting for Poppy and I loved how kind and friendly she was, I definitely wouldn't have been that kind with such a grumpy roommate. XD I loved seeing her really love the tests + help out her friends. I loved seeing her cheer for her friends (and classmates). I did get a bit tired of her stress on being new to it all and worrying about the magic. GIRL, as the people at school said, it will come when it needs to come. 

I loved reading about the other girls, like Lily and Jessamy. Loved getting to know them, see what powers they got, and more. 

The tests were just oodles of fun and I wish I could have participated in them. I wonder what power I would get.

I just wasn't happy with the power that Poppy got. It felt too convenient. [spoiler] Too of course she gets THAT power (which of course no one knows any more because it is old and never given). I would have rather seen her NOT get a power in the first book, and maybe also say that this can happen. Then again, maybe just give her any power, Ariel sounded like a fun one for her. Because seriously, it was a bit tiresome to see her constantly put herself down.[/spoiler]

I really loved the illustrations in the book, of course by the wonderful Roberta Tedeschi! I loved seeing all the various fairies/smallfolk. 

Oh, and something that could be better is the feeling of time. At times we would read how a test would be the next week, but then the next sentence is about that test. It was really confusing and had me re-reading at times. I also really missed reading about lessons. It was just friendship and tests and one or two times lessons. I just didn't feel like a whole semester went by. If anything it felt like mere days. 

Plus, I would have liked to get a better feel of how big the school was and how many smallfolk were there. For most of the time I thought Poppy's class consisted of maybe 7-8 smallfolk and her school maybe having 20. But then there were times when we read about much more students. So that was a tad confusing. 

All in all, despite it feeling like YET another book with these tropes + some issues, I really enjoyed it and flew through it.