BOOK REVIEW / Bookshop Window: The widow's broom - Chris Van Allsburg: Andersen Press, pounds 8.99.

A wonderful fairy-tale, welcome after all the moral fables and slices of life, about a widow who suddenly acquires a witch's broom. The broom can sweep by itself, but also chop wood and play the piano; the widow knows it's a friend, but has to save it from the suspicions and violence of her neighbours. The pictures are exquisitely detailed and luminous, in shades of grey and sepia, as if done by moonlight.