Only 127 years old, [the title character in The Little Witch] is considered too young to attend the Walpurgis Night rites, sneaks in anyhow and is put on probation for a year with the instruction to be a good witch. Her raven Abraxes, with a curious ignorance of witches' semantics, encourages her to use her spells to help the poor, the young and the abused—man or beast. Such a diet of unrelieved benevolence would have been rather too sweet and lucent, had Herr Preussler not presented the witch's good deeds with humor, a nice sense of detail and allowed her also a few mischievous moments.

Ellen Lewis Buell, "Among the New Books for the Younger Readers' Library: 'The Little Witch'," in The New York Times Book Review (© 1961 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), October 29, 1961, p. 42.