SOLVED. Juvenile/Middle Grade; Fantasy about girl who must complete a task to become a witch

[meg]

I read this book in the US between 2002 and 2008 at the outside but almost certainly 2003-2005, and I believe it was published at most a few years earlier. It was part of a series of maybe 3-5 books, and I think the later books were still being published at that approximate time because I remember new ones appearing on the library shelves. I think the target audience was probably 8-12, not picture books or YA.

In the first book, a girl has to fulfill some sort of trial or task on her thirteenth birthday to get her "witch ranking" or something like that. I believe the task is magically assigned somehow and she got an especially difficult task somehow even though she wasn't a very good witch. I vaguely recall her task involving shrinking very small and sneaking into a castle, possibly with a hedge maze, but I'm not sure about that. I think she had a cat familiar, and maybe 1-2 friends who came with her.

I think in a later book in the series they go to a semi-abandoned seaside resort town, possibly with some sort of magic time traveling carousel? There is also possibly in later books a evil villain dark lord type character with a stupid name.

This is not The Worst Witch, Which Witch?, the So You Want To Be A Wizard series, or Witch Week.

[meg]

Oh wow, I've been googling and searching various lists and search engines for years with absolutely no luck and then I happened to run a WorldCat search right after posting this and found it immediately! The book was The Everyday Witch by Sandra Forrester.

[Rainbowheart]

Glad you found it!

The Everyday Witch for the trackable link.