With Weetzie Bat and company off shooting another movie, their children are left to their own devices under the care a friend, Coyote. While they are gone, Witch Baby has fallen into a melancholy and her "almost-sister," Cherokee, goes to Coyote to ask for help in cheering her up. She makes Witch Baby a pair of wings from feathers he has the wind bring in and she gifts them to Witch Baby at her birthday party. Then Angel Juan reappears, having return from Mexico, and the foursome - Angel Juan, Witch Baby, Raphael and Angel Juan - form a band called The Goat Guys. They practice but their first show is a disaster. In an attempt to fix it, Cherokee makes more gifts and soon the band is more successful than they ever dreamed. But they find the temptations of success hard to resist and soon Cherokee and Witch Baby are more unhappy than when they had no success at all.
Impression: This was the hardest of the three books so far to keep focused on. As a result, it took 3 or 4 days to read instead of getting through it in one night. The story is a warning against growing up too fast, too early, and the temptations that surround teenagers in today's world. In the end, the children in the book discover that these things do not make them happy and return back to a more peaceful and fulfilling lifestyle. It remains to be seen if this return to what was before the sex and drugs and rock 'n roll fame has an impact on the youngster - for that I'll need to read future stories, but in this book it was almost too . . . naive. The implication to me was that you can go back and everything will return to what it once was, but this is very rarely a true thing.
Block's writing remained the imaginative delight it has been, with her creative phrasing and unique names, but the story itself needed a little more at the ending. Something to show that scars can remain from such things. Without it, her warning is weak at best, and not to be taken seriously at worst. The theme is good, and a story that gives such a warning is a good idea in an era where it's almost expected that young people will be involved in such things, but it's useless if there's no reason to give that warning meaningful consideration.
