“The Witches” by Roald Dahl
Genre: Children’s Fiction, Fantasy
Source: Gift
Summary from Goodreads:
This Roald Dahl classic tells the scary, funny and imaginative tale of a seven-year-old boy who has a run-in with some real-life witches! “In fairy tales witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks and they ride on broomsticks. But this is not a fairy tale. This is about REAL WITCHES. REAL WITCHES dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women. They live in ordinary houses and they work in ordinary jobs. That is why they are so hard to catch.” Witches, as our hero learns, hate children. With the help of a friend and his somewhat-magical grandmother, our hero tries to expose the witches before they dispose of him.
This book was a lot of fun! I love that it took a ‘fear’ of some kids and made it real thing. Kids can be suspicious and if you pair that with an overactive imagination, you get kids who think the worst about adults. In this case it’s women who are witches. Our unnamed narrator thinks his grandma is trying to pull a fast one on him when she tells him about witches. In the end, grandma was right!
I don’t know why but I really enjoyed this book. Seriously, I’ve been trying to write this review for over a week and all I got as “I liked it”. I guess I’m a sucker for kids outsmarting adults. It’s a shame I didn’t read this as a kid. It’s also a good thing I never watched the movie because it’s apparently terrifying.
The bottom line? I liked it!
This book was read for my Roald Dahl Challenge.
The Cheap Reader 
I’ve always LOVED Roald Dahl’s books, especially The Witches. There’s just something about the way he tells a story that is so enchanting and lovely.
His books are so awesome. I’m glad I got the chance to read them this year.
Haha, I love this review! There are some books that are tough to be objective about, and this is one of them. ‘The Witches’ was one of my all time favorites as a kid, and I don’t think there’s a better villain in children’s lit than the Grand High Witch (how scary is she? Blech).
I actually did some children’s theater last year and some of the younger kids were a bit out of control, so I sat them down for a story time and told them an abbreviated version of ‘The Witches’. You could have heard a pin drop!
She was pretty scary and I’m an adult!
This sounds like a cute book! I’m sure my kids would love it! I hope you are having a wonderful Wednesday! Stop by for a visit sometime if you get the chance! 🙂
Leigh Ann
MaMa’s Book Corner
I remember loving this book when I was little but finding it pretty frightening!
I can imagine that it’s frightening for a kid. I wouldn’t want to be turned into a mouse!
The movie is definitely scary. I used to love the movie when I was a kid (even though it scared the crap out of me). But I have never read the book, I think largely because I know the movie so well. I should though, because I love Roald Dahl! Love him!
You should read it! It would be interesting to see how close the movie is to the book.