Polly and Buster: The Search for the Silver Witch by Sally Rippin

Title: Polly and Buster: The Search for the Silver Witch

Author: Sally Rippin

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: Hardie Grant Egmont

Published:  1^st June 2019

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 304

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: Polly and Buster have always believed that witches and monsters can be friends, but it seems no one else agrees. While the witches are furious and the monsters are in uproar, much greater menace lurks nearby. Can Polly and Buster bring everyone together in time to save their town?

Award short listings:

– Australian Independent Bookseller awards

– Australian Children’s Book Council

– Australian Book Industry Awards

– YABBA children’s choice awards

– Australian Book Sellers Association

– Speech Pathology Awards

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Polly and Buster are back – and they’ve heard things are getting better after Buster saved Malorie Halloway. Yet as Buster’s about to receive his medal ceremony, that’s cancelled, and Miss Spinnaker disappears. Tensions begin to rise between witches and monsters again and everyone is doing everything they can to keep Polly and Buster apart. But when things get bad at school, Polly runs away and takes Buster with her in search of her Aunt Hilda, a Silver Witch whom Polly believes can help Blackmoon Coven. But when Aunt Hilda refuses, it is up to Polly and Buster to bring everyone together, defeat the gorvan, and unite witches and monsters alike.

The final book in the Polly and Buster trilogy  continues to reflect on the implications and results of apartheid, and categorising people based on aspects of who they are that are beyond their control. The Polly and Buster trilogy and its themes of apartheid, of assumptions, prejudice and what black and white thinking looks like, and what the results are evocative. It’s told through the eyes of children who don’t see prejudice, who see each other for who they are. They see beyond what the outside of a person is – and illustrate that hatred and prejudice are learned and taught. They are not innate when we are born. In Polly and Buster, the instigating factor in the hatred and prejudice is a mine accident many years before the start of the series, setting up why Polly and Buster have had to hide their friendship and why in this book, they have to run away.

The tensions build throughout the novel – as they did over the apartheid years between everyone, reflecting a sense of hopelessness at first that things won’t be resolved, but with Polly and Buster, I knew they could resolve things as they had been doing since book one, albeit without a couple of favourites by their side, but I knew they would find a new way to tackle the rising tensions in their home. The looming spectre of Diedre Halloway, one of the driving forces of discrimination, instilled fear in everyone, even people who had started to or were trying to unite witches and monsters. This shows that it can sometimes only take a small, vocal minority, a single person with great power, who can influence everything and everyone around them.

The final book in the Polly and Buster trilogy shows what the power of friendship and unity can do, and how it can bring people together. I think this is a very powerful series for readers of all ages, because it can help us understand how discrimination and prejudice happens, but also help us work out how to overcome it. It celebrates the power of friendship in a divisive world, and I think can help us open discussions about apartheid, as an example, and serves as a warning to never let something like that happen again.