The Witches
By Roald Dahl
Hi! Have you ever had an encounter with a witch? If you did, how did you know it was a witch? Because witches look like ordinary people! Here are some things you can look for to find out whether a person is a regular woman or a witch:
Number 1: All witches are women.
Number 2: All witches wear gloves.
Number 3: All witches have blue spit.
Number 4: All witches have a bald head. (They use wigs to cover them up.)
Number 5: All witches have bigger nostrils than usual.
Number 6: All witches have no toes.
One time, a boy (I don’t think it ever says his name) had two close encounters with witches. One time, he got away; the other time, he wasn’t so lucky! It all started when his parents died and he had to move from England to Norway to his grandmother’s house. That was when his grandmother told him all about witches. She was the reason he even got away his first time.
When the British boy was a young child, he was playing and building on his treehouse when he noticed a witch underneath the tree. The boy realized that it was a witch and she tried tempting him with “tamed” snakes. But he had heard his grandmother’s stories and she was the exact description that his grandmother had showed him. A few minutes later, the lady was still there. His grandmother called him in for lunch. He said that there was a weird lady standing beneath the tree. By the time his grandmother had gotten there, the lady was gone! Then, the boy told his grandmother that he had had an encounter with a witch. And this was only the first time!
The second time was when a man came by and told his grandmother that his father’s will had said that the boy had to move to England and so did his grandmother. So the boy and his grandmother moved to England. His grandmother had an illness and after she recovered, they headed to a hotel. There, they stayed for a few nights. On one of those nights, the boy was looking for a place to train his pet mice. The manager said that, if she caught the mice out of their cage, then she would drown them in a bucket of water. The boy didn’t want them to drown, but they still needed their exercise. So, finally he found a room where he could train his mice. It was a place where people met in order to stop cruelty for children. He also saw a big screen and he could hide behind that if they came in and had a meeting. And if they saw him, they were supposed to stop cruelty to children, so they would surely help him.
Then, the committee came in. They were about to have their meeting. The boy thought that he should probably just stay there until the meeting was over and then leave. Then he noticed something odd about the people. They all had rather large nostrils. There was a sort-of blueish stuff on their teeth. And they were all scratching their heads. Suddenly, one came to the front of the room and said, “You can take off your wigs.” The boy was stuck in a gathering of witches!
Will the boy be able to get out of this situation? Or will the witches do something terrible to him? As I always say, read the book to find out!
I recommend this book to readers who like fiction books and Roald Dahl books. This book is an exciting adventure, although I wish they had said a little more at the ending.
A few helpful things I like to say about the books I read:
“Run and Get Mom” (how I describe the scariness factor): There were a few scary parts, but none were too scary.
“Yucky-Lovey Stuff” (how I describe the romance factor): Zero. None. Nada.
I give this book 5 wands.
I have to admit, this book was a little scary. But, it was good either way. I learned a lot more about witches in it. And after you learn what you can recognize about a witch, here’s some advice: flip back to the page where the boy asks you which one of the two ladies is a witch. (Here’s a hint: look at their noses!)
