Genre: Fiction/Fantasy
Reading Level/Interest Level: 4.7 / Grades 4-6
Awards: ALA Notable Children’s Books 1995
Similar Titles: James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary.
Can
you imagine if witches were real? Not good witches, not green witches to drop
houses on, but bald, evil, square-footed , claw-fingered witches who want
nothing more in the world than to destroy every last child? Can you imagine how
horrifying it would be if they were so deceitful as to walk in plain sight, but
no one ever noticed? That is, of course, unless you know what to look for and
the best defense is someone who knows first-hand, how to combat witches.
When
a young English boy loses his parents and goes to live with his beloved Norwegian
grandmother, he comes to find that her eccentricities and stories may not be as
far-fetched as he once believed. Armed with her knowledge and familiar with her
battle scars, he is his generation’s greatest hope against the witches when he
accidentally stumbles into a witches’ national convention, and into the
clutches of the notorious and villainous Grand High Witch.
Of
all her schemes, the Grand High Witch unleashes her greatest plot, to turn the
world’s children into mice, forcing their own families to dispatch and discard
them forever. With his own pet mice,
grandmother, and an unlikely ally, the clever ingenious boy fights against the
great witches’ plot, despite murderous hotel staff and petrified guests, even
if he has to save the world, at only 3 fingers tall.
Like
all Roald Dahl classics, The Witches,
is gritty, dark and intelligent. Great for tween readers that like a little
more gumption in their novels, this is an amazing story of overcoming adversity
with an imagination catching fantasy theme that seems almost plausible in the
real world and will have children looking closely at those they meet to see if
they too fit the criteria of “witch.”
On
a personal note, while I read this book in the second grade, I now read it with
my 6 year old daughter, and for a child that is often socially unafraid, even
when it might be warranted, it was a phenomenal help in driving home the point
of a stranger might not always be what you think you see, but in a way that didn’t
scare, but just planted the seed and made her think twice about any situation
before acting. It also encouraged exploration of folktales from other cultures,
with the stories the grandmother often told and with the interspersed
illustrations, it is also a good transition book between picture and chapter books
for those reluctant to pick-up any book not fully illustrated in color. I recommend this book always.
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