Literature / Anna Kadabra

Cover for the first book in the series

Anna Kadabra is a series of Spanish children's books written by Pedro Mañas and illustrated by David Sierra Listón. They center on the titular Anna Kadabra, a little girl who, after moving with her parents to the town of Moonville, discovers that she is a actually a witch who has been chosen by her pet cat Cosmo to form part of the Club de la Luna Llena (Full Moon Club), where she learns magic in secret of the world.

She is accompanied on her magical adventures by her optimistic best friend Marcus Pocus, the smart but bossy Sarah Kazam, the cheerful but weird Ángela Sésamo, and her school teacher, also doubling as her magic teacher, Madame Prune. Along the way, she'll also have to deal with her classmate Oliver Dark, the great-grandson of a famed witch hunter, who wants to continue his great-grandfather's legacy.

The series was started on February 11th, 2020 and has since released 13 regular books, 2 "legendary adventures" (books of greater length), 1 "magical diary", and the Spin-Off series Marcus Pocus, centering on Anna's titular best friend.

List of books in the series:

Regular series

1. "El Club de la Luna Llena"
2. "Un problema con alas"
3. "Un monstruo en la bañera"
4. "Fiesta a medianoche"
5. "La Isla de las Mascotas"
6. "Pasteles peligrosos"
7. "El secreto del bosque"
8. "El festival de brujas"
9. "Un lobo en escena"
10. "La llamada de las sirenas"
11. "El festival de las sombras"
12. "Brujos en pañales"
13. "Peligro en la mansión"
14. "El reto del volcán" (upcoming)

Legendary adventures

1. "El Valle de los Unicornios"
2. "La canción de los dragones"

Others

• "El Diario Mágico de Anna Kadabra"

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Anna Kadabra features examples of the following tropes:

• All Witches Have Cats: Anna and Rita Varita have cats (Cosmo and Cereza respectively) as their magical pets, though wizards can have many other kinds of animals as magical pets too.
• Animal Lover: Marcus, having green magic, which gives him powers over nature and animals, of course has a lot of love towards animals and concern whenever they are involved.
• Annoying Younger Sibling:
  • Nino, Ángela's younger brother, while a cheerful kid, can be quite bothersome to the Club at times, being the only non-wizard human who knows about their magic.
  • Anna's younger brother Otto, while a baby, can also be troublesome at times, especially since he's already a wizard and can cause magic by just sneezing.
• Chekhov's Gun: Any time a character learns or talks about a new spell at the beginning of a book, you can bet that it will be used later in the story in some way. For example, in "El secreto del bosque", Anna asks Sarah where she put her Flying Broomstick, which was nowhere to be seen in the train's baggage, and Sarah shows that she had used a shrinking spell to carry it on her pocket. Later, the group have to search through a rabbit burrow that's too small for them, so they come up with the idea of using Sarah's spell on themselves so they can pass through. Then, the group has to arrive to a room while still being shrunken, so they come up with the idea of using Sarah's already shrunken broom to fly there.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Ángela is very joyful, but also very odd and eccentric. She has a habit of wearing a bizarre accessory like a unicorn's diadem or diving glasses every day with no reason given.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: There are 10 different types of magic that a wizard can have, with each one granting different powers and being a different color. For example, red magic can affect the five senses and green magic gives you power over nature, plants, and animals. Anna herself has rainbow magic, which gives the powers of every other type of magic, though making it harder for her to master them all.
• Cute Witch: Any of the child witches, like Anna, Sarah, Ángela, or Rita Varita, are of course nothing short of adorable.
• Flying Broomstick: While some wizards like Sarah, Madame Prune, or Sebastián Tatachán use these brooms in the classic way, this is done with the spell "levantaculos cosmicos" ("cosmic butt-lifting") which allows for anything to be turned into a flying vehicle, so wizards can also use things like scooters, bikes, or vacuum cleaners. They can even improvise a vehicle on the spot, like in "La Isla de las Mascotas", where Anna and Marcus are transported to an island while in Anna's bed, but she's able to make it fly before they reach the ground.
• Giant Squid: Patty is a large octopus-like monster (her species being referred to as a "splugel") that lives at the bottom of the "Pantano Monstruoso" (Monstrous Swamp"). She's usually friendly unless you hassle her or her swamp.
• Heel–Face Turn: Oliver does this in "El Valle de los Unicornios" after becoming an actual wizard and genuinely befriending Anna and her group, as he ends up joining the Club de la Luna Llena as an official member.
• Insult to Rocks: In "Fiesta a medianoche" Anna discovers that Oliver stole her idea for a Halloween party so he could invite everyone to his party first, and she comments to the readers that the only reasons she didn't turn him into a lizard on the spot were 1. Because she couldn't use her magic in public, and 2. Because it would have been an insult to lizards.
• Running Gag: In every single book, Ángela will be shown wearing some very bizarre accessory like cowboy boots or a firefighter's helmet and Anna will tell the readers to not ask her the reason why.
• Wizarding School: While wizards don't go to magic schools, they do go to magic clubs after school where they are taught magic in secret, acting as the equivalent to this. Strangely, in the Marcus Pocus book "El amuleto de oro", the character Camila Crisol is stated to go to a magic university, indicating that apparently those exist but magic schools don't.

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