"The Witch Boy" (Vol 1-3) by Molly Knox Ostertag

The Witch Boy by Molly Ostertag follows Asher, a boy who wants to learn the ways of witchery even though he lives in a world where boys become shape-shifters and don’t practice magic. The Hidden Witch continues where The Witch Boy left off. Without giving away too much, more characters are introduced and developed, and more (but not too much) insight into how magic works in this universe is offered. Finally, The Midwinter Witch explores the eponymous witch’s extended family and magical traditions like the, “Midwinter Festival.”

Pros:

The premise of the work involves challenges gender stereotypes, and the work regularly offers a message of, “self-determination.” To that end, I appreciate how these works provide readers both language and lenses to understand themselves and the world around them.
The art style is both approachable and appropriate for the work
The work features and focuses on characters of color
Neither of the two volumes have a romantic subplot shoehorned in; the rumblings of a relationship appear in the third volume, but it isn’t a major focus of the work

Cons:

This is probably an unfair criticism given the book’s target demographic, but all three of the books are predictable. Moreover, virtually all of the conflict presented is neatly resolved by the end of a given volume.
I have two nitpicks with regards to the first book. First, when Asher uses his magic to heal Charlie’s leg, wouldn’t her parents make more of a fuss? Broken legs generally take more than an evening to heal, after all. Second, his coven seems pretty nonplussed by Asher bringing a non-magical friend to visit. Then again, it only happened in the climax of the (first) story, and they couldn’t have been too worried about hiding from non-magical society given that their residence was, “running distance,” from said friend’s house.
(Major Spoiler) In the second work, the death of Asher’s “troubled” uncle, Mikasi, felt abrupt, especially given how little signaling there was of the level of his sacrifice until we see his gravestone.
The main antagonist of the third volume was both introduced and dismissed in a flash. This, combined with the smaller stakes and scale of the story meant the third volume had less of an impact on me.

Conclusion:

All three books were an easy read for me. Though I have some nitpicks about the storytelling, I am glad this work exists (and I recognize I am not the target audience). It warms my heart to see more “mainstream” publishers like Scholastic pick up works that consider questions of gender, and in turn, questions of self-determination and belonging. Ultimately, if the premise sounds interesting, I think these works are worth a look.

Check out the first volume here.