FORGOTTEN BOOK: SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH: ALL THAT GLITTERS

 Sabrina the Teenage Witch:  All That Glitters by Ray Garton  (1998)

Middle school novel based on the television show (1996-2003) featuring Melissa Joan Hart as the title character, which in turn was based on the 1971 comic book, which in turn was based on a character who first appeared in Archie's Madhouse #22 -- sometimes given as Archie's Mad House -- (October 1962).  Her appearance in Madhouse was intended to be a one-shot, but the character proved to be popular and it was kept on until 1969, when an animated series about the character was put into development.  The Sabrina the Teenage Witch Show ran for four seasons (1970-1974) and spawned the Sabrina the Teenage Witch (sometimes given as Sabrina:  The Teen-Age Witch comic book which went through three volumes (April 1971-January 1983, 77 issues; May 1997-December 1999, 32 issues; and January 2000-September 2009, 104 issues).  The character also appeared regularly in Archie's TV Laugh-Out (1969-1985, 106 issues).  An elementary school-age version of the character, known as "Sabrina -- that Cute Little Witch," appeared in almost every issue of the Little Archie comics.  Sabrina also showed up in a number of  Archie comic books, interacting with the Riverdale gang.  She once appeared in a cross-over issue with Sonic the Hedgehog.  Over the years, Sabrina has been retooled to appeal to an older, teen-aged audience.  A 1996 live action series, Sabrina the Teenage Witch ran for seven seasons and spawned two television movies and a soundtrack release.  In 1999, the animated series Sabrina: The Animated Series (catchy title) ran for one season (65 episodes), followed by a television/direct-to-video film Sabrina:  Friends Forever, and yet another animated series, Sabrina's Secret Life.  A CGI animated show, Sabrina:  Secrets of a Teenage Witch debuted in 2013.   A more mature comic book series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina debuted in 2014 and is still on-going; this comic book led to the Netflix series of the same name (2018-2020, 36 episodes).

But what (I hear you ask plaintively) about the novels?  There have been 52 books in the regular series written by various authors from 1997 to 2003, including two anthologies,  Ray Garton wrote two of the books, this one (#12) and the earlier Ben There, Done That (#6, under the pseudonym 'Joseph Locke'), as well as a short story in one of the anthologies.  There were six books adapting various television episodes, including The Troll Bride by Garton as "Locke."  There were also four miscellaneous novels, including two movie tie-ins; one of which was Sabrina Goes to Rome.  A related series, Salem's Tales, about Sabrina's cat, Salem, ran for 14 volumes; a fifteenth in that series, was a separate film tie-in of  Sabrina Goes to Rome, and was penned by different authors; presumably that tie-in told that story from Salem's viewpoint.  There have also also been three novels in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina series.

For a teenage witch, Sabrina has been a very busy little money maker.

About the character.  In the original storyline, Sabrina Spellman learns that she is a witch on her 16th birthday.  She lives with her 600-year-old aunts, Hilda and Zelda, in a town not far from Archie Andrews' Riverdale.  Hilda and Zelda are tasked with teaching Sabrina the ins and outs of witchcraft.  Sabrina's familiar is Salem Saberhagen, a 500year-okd witch who has been changed into cat as a punishment for plotting to take over the world.  Sabrina's on-again, off-again boyfriend is Harvey Kinkle; in All that Glitters the relationship is off-again.

Hilda and Zelda decide to take Sabrina to the Rummage Realm, a fabulous never-ending bazaar operating in a different dimension; bargains of all sorts of magical kinds are for sale here.  While her aunts are checking out some of the stalls, they suggest that Sabrina get something to eat and  look at some to the other stalls.   Sabrina comes across a brightly-colored tent with a sign WISHES GRANTED INQUIRE WITHIN.  Against Salem's warning, she enters.  From the old crone in the tent, Sabrina buys a pouch of wishdust, a glittery powder which grants wishes, whether consciously or unconsciously stated.

What Sabrina did not realize is that wishdust is very dangerous.  Wishes cannot be reversed and wishdust had been basically banned buy the Witch Council for over 300 years.  Finding this out, Sabrina did not want have the wishdust fall into the wrongs hands so she kept it with her, which meant, bringing it to school with her.  That's when things started to go wrong.

There was a rumor that Brad Pitt and Winona Ryder (or was it Leonardo DiCaprio and Neve Campbell?  Doesn't matter.)  were in town to film a movie.  Then somebody said they thought they saw them outside the school and a stampede began.  In the rush, Sabrina's purse was knocked onto the ground.  The many trampling feet caused small pinprick holes to appear on her purse and some of the wishdust sprinkled out without Sabrina being aware.  Now strange things began to happen.  The cafeteria was serving decent food on a meatloaf day!  The following day, the cafeteria served nothing but the world's best hot fudge sundaes.  An elephant suddenly appeared in the school's corridors.  Someone wished that school would be over for the day and all the sprinklers went off, soaking everyone and cancelling school for that day -- and in that peculiar chaos, Sabrina once again lost her bag -- but this time she would not find it.  Four very confused movies actors (Pitt, Ryder, DiCaprio, and Campbell) suddenly appeared at the school, and just an instant before, Brad Pitt had been in Germany shooting a film.  The overworked school secretary suddenly had four clones to do her work for her.  

A janitor eventually found the purse and turned in to the vice principal, who saw the glitter and gave it to his secretary to give to the school dance committee, who had been looking for more glitter to decorate for their dance, which had the theme Warm Weather Snow Ball.  The vice principal then learned that Sabrina was a witch, as well as the secret of the wishdust.  While attempting to retrieve the wishdust, he was attacked by a dog, lost his pants, and was arrested and thrown in jail.  Come the time of the dance, someone wished for actual snow and a blizzard struck the auditorium...

And the wishes cannot be undone...

Sabrina is a clean-cut show and this is a clean-cut book.  Where normal high school wishes would involve thing of a sexual nature, there is not a hint of it here.  Where typical teenagers, who invariably feel put upon no matter who they are, there are no revenge fantasies.  Even the high school mean girls are milquetoasts in this novel.  Just as well.  Garton tells an interesting and well-plotted tale directly aimed for his audience, their parents, and middle school librarians.  The book is  much better than one might think.

Ray Garton (1962-2024) wrote horror novels and fantasies for adults and young adults.  For a long time, his work for young adults was signed as "Joseph Locke" because he did not want fans of his young adult books seeking the more visceral adult novels he was writing.  All That Glitters was his only young adult novel published under his own name   He also published at least 22 adult novels, two collections, and four film adaptations.  In 2006, he received the Grand Master Award from the World Horror Convention.  His novel In a Dark Place:  The Story of a True Haunting, written for (ahem) notorious "ghost-hunters" Ed and Lorraine Warren and published as non-fiction, was the basis of both a Discovery Channel and a Lionsgate film (at one time, the book was one of the most sought-after titles on eBay).