Worst Wizard?
or Worst Witch.
I picked up and read Worst Witch by Jill Murphy today.
This because I became curious about the parallels between this book and Harry Potter.


I first noticed Worst Witch as a television series on the German telly and wondered what this kind of castoff of Harry Potter could be. Then I read that Jill Murphy wrote her first book in 1974 at the time that JK Rowling was 9 years old.
Could have Rowling read this book, I found it in the section 5 till 9 year old, so that would be a book for her age-level or at least for Rowling’s younger sister. But maybe she was so precocious on the reading level, that she already discarded children books.
What first surprised me getting the book, was how small it was: a mere 103 pages typeset in a cast twice the size of the Harry Potter books and illustrated through the book at average every five pages, So the whole story is between a quarter to a third the length of HP and the Philosopher’s Stone. The illustrations are done by the author herself and part of the story.

There are similarities of course.
The setting is a boarding school where magic is educated.
The school is situated in a castle. That’s one feature both books share with Jane Youlen’s Wizard Hall
But there the similarity on the setting stops: Is Hogwarts a kind of haven and heaven for Harry, Cackle’s Academy is dark and gloomy and “ looks more like a prison then a school”, there are no dormitories, but every girl has her own dreary cellar like room.
There are houses, but they are not mentioned and don’t play any role at all.
There is the dreadful teacher, no boarding school novel would be complete without that factor.
But Miss Hardbroom, ( in Dutch she is called Heks Hakblok = witch chopping-board ) when being an inspiration is more the precursor of Minerva McGonagall then of Severus Snape. She is a strict, rather humorless dry stick with a tight bun, who has little patience with clumsiness and bad class performances.
Unfortunately the protagonist Mildred Hubble is all thumbs and toes and makes first year Neville Longbottom look like Cedric Diggory. Mildred stays clumsy and even gets a friend in the 2nd book that equals her clumsiness.
Harry Potter as protagonist is not an utter clutch, he is just ignorant of his rightful world.
For Mildred Hubble there is no wondering about what her world is and where she is from, she and her fellow student are from nowhere, they just exist at the school and outside the school nothing seems to exist or be of any importance. Mildred is not a rule breaker like Harry, she just isn’t capable enough for living by the rules. One of those rules is that witches follow the tradition of having a cat perching on their brooms when flying.

Witches and wizard having familiars is quite an old thread, the animals that accompany them makes something visual about their owners, Hedwig is the visualization of Harry’s pure mind capable of taking high flights, Mildred’s tabby kitten shows her insecurity; the poor animal has flight-fright. Getting the kitten triggers a nasty remark from the class bully, which result is accidentally successful spell, counter revenge and humiliation, with as result an attempt to run off and discovering a plot by evil witches. The protagonist counters that single handed and gets the end praise by the headmistress Miss Cackle.
Although Mildred sees the headmistress’ office more often then Harry, never one get’s the feeling she is special in attention by Miss Cackle, while it is very clear from the start in Harry’s case. Miss Cackle certainly is no precursor of Dumbledore, she is sweet natured, but rather ineffective and rather naïve. One would never call Dumbledore naïve, he is so powerful he can permit himself to act weird and eccentric or pronounce trust in someone commonsense would say not to trust. Would a Miss Cackle face the same kind of danger Dumbledore faces in Philosopher’s Stone or magister Hickory ( the headmaster of Wizard’s Hall ),she would probably crumble and go to pieces at the first moment. The danger in the form of her bad sister trying to take over the school with a crackpot plot is however never a serious one. Sneaking into the school at the moment tradition dictates, that everyone sleeps till midday and turning everyone into frog is a bit on the shoddy side. One teacher taking an early leak would crack it. But on the other hand the whole plot and complot in Philosophers’ Stone is not that solid either. It always looked more like a test run setup for Harry cum sui to run and solve to me. But that can be because I saw the movie before I read the book.

Till so far the key elements are unavoidable: a boarding school novel needs a closed environment, a dreaded teacher and a benevolent head of school. And of course the schoolyard bully annex archrival. In comes Ethel Hallow, who like Mildred and unlike Draco Malfoy, lacks any background and unlike Draco doesn’t has a special position, that sanctions her animosity. She isn’t the teacher pet either, as Harry suspects Draco to be, but like Draco she doesn’t get snidy remarks from Hardbroom, just because she don’t deserve them. Ethel Hallow is just the best of the class, by luck or by capacity. Draco doesn’t seem to be an outstanding student. The whole Pure Blood theme has no parallel in Worst Witch and there is no reason to assume Hardbroom of Ethel want Mildred to leave, something that seemed to been a part in the movie made from this booklet. With Diana Rigg in the role of Miss Hardbroom.
Did Rowling read this work? And did she borrow from it?
Well it is almost unavoidable to assume she knew it. And maybe gave fundament to her decision that Harry should be a boy and not a moment consideration her hero could be a girl.
Worst Witch basically handles about being clumsy and is a nice pleasant work, that never goes too deep, there are no hidden agenda’s and everyone is whom she seems to be. In Rowling’s work the false face is an ever returning issue, from Quirrel at the start till Dumbledore in the end. When borrowing it is as borrowing the structure subject-verb-object from the everyday newspaper to build sentences.
And yet when I saw a profile picture of Ethel Hallow my first thought was:
“That’s Draco!”

a little bit of PhotoShopping makes it evident.

EDIT: Intervieuw with Jill Murphy