A fantasy middle-grade novel I read in the mid-80s, with a green Chinese dragon on the cover. The dragon belonged to a Chinese girl who rode it in a circus and put on a thick Chinese accent for the punters, but could actually speak English perfectly.
She was one of the magical characters helping the two child protagonists on their adventure: another was a witch who had long hair which flew about when she was casting spells. She made an illusory double of one of the children (called a Semblance) so they wouldn’t be missed.
At one point the protagonists and their flying carpet were swallowed by some kind of evil spirit that had a dark stormy space inside it. They started calling the spirit the Glutton to make fun of it, and the witch put her head in her hands as if she was despairing so nobody could see her hair flying about when she used her magic to get them out.
Stump the Bookseller
New format, same book stumper solving.
Hi, just scrolling through and saw your post shortly before coming across the cover of what I think may be your book (never read it personally), craziness! Sorry if I’m wrong, though. The book I found is called Room On the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler Macmillan (first published 2001). The link to the website where I found it is http://www.juniormagazine.co.uk/books/the-top-100-childrens-books/60.html. Good luck!
Room on the Broom is brilliant, but I’m sure it’s not the one the OP is looking for – it’s a picture book with no Chinese connection and much more recent.
Oddly, I’ve just come across a solved Stumper which suggests that it’s one of the “Melinda and Timothy” books – they certainly feature a witch whose hair flies around when she’s doing magic.
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