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The witches, common sense media reviewers.
Boy and his grandma fight scary witches in classic tale.
A Lot or a Little?
What you will—and won't—find in this book.
Youngsters will learn a little about the physiolog
Even the tiniest creature can be a hero.
The little boy uses his intelligence and problem-s
For a book without much graphic violence, The Witc
No profanity, but the witches talk about kids smel
Grandmamma smokes cigars.
Parents need to know that Roald Dahl's 1983 book The Witches is a highly entertaining fantasy novel with scary and suspenseful scenes. A young orphaned boy goes to live with his grandmother in Norway, and she tells her grandson true (in the world of the book) facts about witches. Dahl's superior inventiveness…
Educational Value
Youngsters will learn a little about the physiology of mice. For example, their hearts beat 500 times per minute -- so fast that it's impossible to distinguish the sound of individual heartbeats.
Positive Messages
Positive role models.
The little boy uses his intelligence and problem-solving skills to beat the witches with their own tricks.
Violence & Scariness
For a book without much graphic violence, The Witches is pretty scary. The witches -- who are known to make kids disappear -- discuss chopping off mouse tails and heads. A restaurant cook chops off two inches of a mouse's tail, and it hurts and bleeds for a while afterward. Two other mice are thrown against a wall. Additional scenes keep the reader on edge with the threat of danger and suspense.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.
No profanity, but the witches talk about kids smelling like "poo" or "dog's droppings."
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.
Drinking, Drugs & Smoking
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Roald Dahl 's 1983 book The Witches is a highly entertaining fantasy novel with scary and suspenseful scenes. A young orphaned boy goes to live with his grandmother in Norway, and she tells her grandson true (in the world of the book) facts about witches. Dahl's superior inventiveness as a storyteller is on full display in the tales Grandmamma tells, and in her descriptions of the physical characteristics that distinguish witches from humans. As in so many of his wonderful works, Dahl also depicts a special, loving relationship between a child and an adult who's not his parent. Grandmamma is a doting caretaker with some singular quirks. She smokes cigars, for example. There's a little violence in the book, especially against mice: A tail is partially sliced off, and two mice are hurled against a wall. However, the threat that the witches will use their evil sorcery against children is what makes the book scary -- perhaps too scary for some kids.
Where to Read
Community reviews.
- Parents say (3)
- Kids say (3)
Based on 3 parent reviews
Way to scary for little kids (I have read it when I was 4 Year,s old)
What's the story.
The little orphan boy in Roald Dahl's THE WITCHES lives with his Norwegian grandmother, who tells him scary facts about witches. It's a good thing she knows these things, because the boy is prepared to protect himself the first time he encounters one. Grandmother and grandson are informed that his parents' will requires that they live in England. Though they are both loath to leave Norway, they move to England, and the boy attends school there. They plan to return to Norway during his summer holidays. However, Grandmamma becomes ill, and her doctor insists that they not travel until she's recovered. They choose a seaside hotel in England for their vacation instead, and there the boy happens upon a sinister meeting of witches. He listens in and is alarmed to hear the witches plot against all the children in the country. With help from Grandmamma, the little boy must find a way to evade the witches and stop their nefarious plans.
Is It Any Good?
This entertaining novel is full of surprises for young readers, though some are pretty scary. As in so many of his books, Dahl creates a fantastical world in which an innocent child sees right and wrong, and solves problems, more effectively than many adults. Dahl also has a knack for inventing original, compelling characteristics, so that his witches aren't just mean and scary, they're uniquely weird. Fortunately, the witches' creepiness is counterbalanced by the warm, charming relationship between the young boy and his cigar-smoking Grandmamma; they make a great team. Kids who have enjoyed other Dahl novels will certainly enjoy The Witches, especially if they like the thrill of getting a little scared.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the way the witches look and behave in The Witches . How are they similar to, or different from, witches in other stories you've read or watched?
Have you read other books by Roald Dahl? How does this book compare to his other novels, such as James and the Giant Peach or Matilda ?
Did you think this book was scary? What were the scariest parts?
Book Details
- Author : Roald Dahl
- Illustrator : Quentin Blake
- Genre : Fantasy
- Topics : Magic and Fantasy , Adventures
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Puffin Books
- Publication date : January 1, 1983
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 8 - 12
- Number of pages : 224
- Available on : Paperback, Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
- Last updated : March 27, 2020
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Dr. Shaun Duke, Professional Nerd
Editor. writer. professor. host., reading time.
- May 14, 2020
Book Review: The Witches by Roald Dahl
- Book Reviews
If Dahl were alive today, he might be particularly bothered by the fact that the 1990 adaptation of his 1983 novel, The Witches , has had the same (or, more probably, slightly more) cultural staying power than the novel it loosely adapts. Indeed, Dahl is on record as having called the adaptation “ utterly appalling ,” yet for a disturbing interpretation to his work, the film remains a cultural touchstone. Until now, my only knowledge of The Witches was my early experiences with the film, a product more deeply terrifying than its quirky and twisted literary predecessor. And, so, like many readers of Dahl’s works, I have a different experience of this particular work, moving backwards from adaptation to the original with a clear sense of bias towards the former.
The Witches is a curious work, both quirky and a tad twisted. The novel follows an unnamed English boy who falls under the care of his Norwegian grandmother after the untimely death of his parents. The grandmother regales her newfound charge with all sorts of tales, the favorite of which are her stories about being a retired witch hunter. When his grandmother falls ill, they vacation in a fancy hotel in Southern England to promote her recovery, which turns out to be the location for the annual meeting of witches. The boy, naturally, stumbles upon the witches, discovers their dastardly plot to rid England of all the pesky children, and suffers a tragic fate that drags his grandmother out of retirement. It’s a story of evil witches and myth, children turned into mice, and the unwavering stupidity of English high society.
As a novel, The Witches has the characteristic quirkiness of all Dahl creations, filling its early pages with delightful anecdotes and amusing witch facts. These early chapters are part of a frame narrative that reminds the intended reader — children — that this is a story with a somewhat comical nature — witches are a silly bunch of monsters — and that everything will be alright in the end (sorta). This takes some of the edge off from what otherwise might be an objectively terrifying premise. The witches, after all, despise children with every fiber of their being and have concocted elaborate schemes and costumes to hide their existence from humanity while abducting and killing the world’s children. Witches, like Soviet spies in a Cold War film, could be anywhere! The frame narrative also sets the stage for the kind of story we’re about to receive: a tale about deliberately caricatured witches and a world blissfully unaware of their existence. In retrospect, it’s weird that such a small portion of the novel is actually dedicated to witches as characters rather than witches as stories, but one can be forgiven for not knowing that witches are truly living among us and requiring a little extra prodding to come to that realization.
The novel shines most when it is dedicated to the boy’s interaction with and response to the titular characters. The introduction of the witches as an organization of women concerned with the protection of children both highlights their monstrosity and cleverness in one glorious sequence of chapters. Caricatured though they may be, the witches command a degree of respect even from our hero. As Sean Bean might say: one does not simply walk into a meeting of witches. Yet, our hero isn’t entirely helpless; his attachment to his mice, who he plans to train as part of his very own mice circus, is our first indicator of his abilities: he is tenacious and brilliant, sucking up the information his grandmother gives him to devise his own brand of witch hunting tactics. If anything, I wanted to see more of his collaboration with his grandmother. The witches are a hydra not easily swayed by a few witch deaths, even if witch reproduction is never quite explained. Where might this story go if their collaboration continued? What clever plans might the witches devise under the guise of a different Grand High Witch? I also hope you’ll forgive me if I could not help seeing Anjelica Huston in the role of the Grand High Witch; my childhood was long ago tainted by traumatic experiences with movies meant for kids.
The historical context behind the novel is also worth mentioning here, as it adds a dimension that parents certainly were aware of at the time of release. Published in 1983, Dahl’s book arrives at a time of heightened awareness of child abductions across the West. Just three years prior, the United Kingdom and the United States both signed the 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, which was designed to increase cooperation for the return of children between signatory nations. As a child of the late 80s and 90s, I remember the dramatic shift in awareness of child abductions and some of the high profile cases that led to more vocal “stranger danger” campaigns, school assemblies, etc. It’s hard not to see The Witches as in some way an early commentary on the period, one which offers a more disturbing answer to the swirling question of “why.” Likewise, the novel might fit the cautionary tale mold found in fairy tales, a dimension parents might recognize in markedly different ways from the novel’s intended child audience. The witches themselves, after all, effectively rely on the public’s inability to provide answer to the disappearance of children, a fact uttered in almost explicit turns by the Grand High Witch and by the grandmother. These thoughts churned around in my head as I read this book, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t affect how I thought about the witches or the light tone of the narration. This book is, I’d argue, far more serious than it lets on.
One final curiosity: The Witches has been occasionally banned for perceived misogyny. I find this critique amusing, especially in light of the fact that many classic adult works have remained in those libraries — and if you spend any time among classic works of literature, you’ll find a sea of attacks on women. The Witches , I’d argue, is more complicated than the criticism suggests, as is the case with almost all book challenges. The novel clearly indicates that all of the witches are and can only be women and that real witches are far more dangerous than male specters of similar type. This is a curious essentialism. However, the grandmother serves as a direct counterpoint by being both competent, knowledgeable, and more put together than all of the male characters except her precocious grandson, who is presented to us as an untrained but brilliant tactician. If anything, the novel unintentionally highlights the standards and expectations of English womanhood, something which the witches must adhere to so as not to be found; but given that, again, the witches are villains who merely adopt these standards for their villainy, this is an incomplete commentary.
Perhaps the novel’s greatest flaw is something the film ultimately resolves: the ending is an invitation to a sequel that never materializes. This is made more concerning in light of the fact that the boy repeatedly reminds us and his grandmother that being turned into a mouse isn’t all that bad. I imagine we’re meant to see being a child and being a mouse as relatively similar positions, but they’re obviously not even if the boy’s mousehood offers a temporary advantage when dealing with witches. Ending with only a fraction of the real problem resolved probably won’t bother others as it did me. I am, if anything, a weird reader who occasionally wants ambiguity and occasionally wants closure; here, I wanted closure because the witches really are monstrous baddies.
Overall, The Witches is a fun and generally pleasurable fantasy from a master of the craft. I don’t consider it the pinnacle of Dahl’s work, but it does precisely what a Dahl book should do: delight with silliness and fun without shirking on its responsibility to be just a tad creepy.
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THE BOY WHO BECAME A MOUSE Date: November 13, 1983, Sunday, Late City Final Edition Section 7; Page 45, Column 1; Book Review Desk Byline: By ERICA JONG Lead: THE WITCHES, By Roald Dahl. Illustrated by Quentin Blake. 202 pp. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $10.95. (Ages 9 and Up) ROALD DAHL knows every bit as well as Bruno Bettelheim that children love the macabre, the terrifying, the mythic. In his latest book, ''The Witches,'' a 7-year-old orphan boy, cared for by his Norwegian grandmother, discovers the true nature of witches and then has the misfortune to be transformed into a mouse by the Grand High Witch of All the World - a horrifying creature with a bride-of-Frankenstein face concealed behind the mask of a pretty young woman. In this book, witches are characterized as figures of horror - baldheaded, claw-fingered, toeless women, their deformities hidden beneath pretty masks, fancy wigs, white gloves and pointy shoes. Text: Although I have written a book arguing for the reha Erica Jong is the author of ''Witches.'' Her most recent book of poetry is ''Ordinary Miracles.'' bilitation of the witch as a descendant of the great mother goddess of the ancient world, I can certainly see what Roald Dahl is up to here. His witches must be horrifying creatures to underline his hero's heroism. For ''The Witches'' is a heroic tale. A schoolboy is transformed into a tiny mouse (with, however, the mind and language of a very bright child), and through his extraordinary bravery, he manages to save all the children of England from the same fate. Under the surface of this deceptively simple tale, which whizzes along and is great fun to read, lurks an interesting metaphor. This is the equation of childhood with mousedom. A child may be smaller than all the witchy, horrifying adults, but he can certainly outwit them. He is tiny and crushable, but he is also fast and well-nigh invisible. With the assistance of his benevolent Grandmamma (who hoists him up to things he can't reach, secretes him in her handbag, feeds and cuddles him), he is able to outsmart nearly the whole adult world. ''The Witches'' is also, in its way, a parable about the fear of death as separation and a child's mourning for the loss of his parents. Mr. Dahl's hero is happy when he is turned into a mouse - not only because of his speed and dexterity (and because he doesn't have to go to school) but also because his short life span now means that he will never have to be parted from his beloved grandmother as he has been from his parents. Already well into her 80's, she has only a few years to live, and he as a mouse-person is granted the same few years. Rather than bemoaning this, both grandmother and grandson rejoice that they can now count on living and dying together. The boy doesn't mind being a mouse, he says, because ''It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like so long as somebody loves you.'' And, indeed, the hero of this tale is loved. Whether as a boy or a mouse, he experiences the most extraordinary and unqualified approval from his grandmother - the sort of unconditional love adults and children alike crave. ''The Witches'' is finally a love story - the story of a little boy who loves his grandmother so utterly (and she him) that they are looking forward to spending their last years few exterminating the witches of the world together. It is a curious sort of tale but an honest one, which deals with matters of crucial importance to children: smallness, the existence of evil in the world, mourning, separation, death. The witches I've written about are far more benevolent figures, yet perhaps that is the point of witches - they are projections of the human unconscious and so can have many incarnations.
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Saturday 30 October 2010
Review: the witches.
Book Review: The Witches By Roald Dahl
Where has this gem been all my years?
I have been on a middle-grade reading kick lately and since it was October, I decided to have some fun with my reading and picked up The Witches by Roald Dahl.
The Witches follows a nameless seven year old narrator and his beloved Grandmamma as they try and steer clear of the evil, loathing, though perfectly disguised witches. These witches have been walking among the earth for centuries and centuries, always on the lookout to quench their sinister thirsts of killing children.
The despise each and every child and their sole reason for existence is to make sure each and every one of them perish in a terrifying and senseless manner.
The narrator and his grandmamma live in England, where a coven of witches creepily live among them. Hoping to catch one of the children alone and snatch them up.
The leader of the entire witch clan is the Grand High Witch. In the 1990 movie adaptation of this novel, the Grand High Witch is played by Anjelica Huston. (No, I haven’t watched it, though after finishing the novel I plan on renting it and enjoying the theatrical version).
Source: Amazon
I have to say, even though this is a children’s novel, sometimes I was a little spooked by the descriptions and signs of these no good witches. I loved the character of Grandmamma because unlike the typical guardian character in paranormal/other creature type books, she actually 100% believes her grandson and doesn’t believe he’s crazy for fearing these witches.
In fact, she is the very person who teaches him the signs to look for when trying to spot a real witch. Just in case you’re curious, here are some of the clues :
- REAL WITCHES dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women.
- “[A witch] doesn’t have fingernails. Instead of finger-nails, she has thin curvy claws, like a cat, and she wears the gloves to hide them.”
- “A REAL WITCH always wears a wig to hide her baldness. She wears a first-class wig.
I absoultely loved this novel. I haven’t read many books in which the narrator doesn’t have a specific name, or even nickname for that matter, though that didn’t take away from the story at all. It read quickly, smoothly, and if you’re looking for a spooky read for the October season though want to be able to sleep with the lights off, check out this eerrie, funny, and witty kid’s classic.
Similar Kid-Friendly Spooky Reads:
- The Great Ghost Rescue by Eva Ibbotson
- Bony-legs by Joanna Cole
- The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base
- The Fairy Rebel by Lynne Reid Banks
- A Tale Dark & Grimm (A Tale Dark & Grimm #1) by Adam Gidwitz
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Featured image via Mr. Fox Magazine
About The Author
Cierra Loften
I'm just a simple Southern girl who loves all things book related and pink! I'm currently studying for my Bachelor's in Mental Health Counseling at Post University and in between that and life, I read anytime I can! I hope you love and enjoy #AmReading as much as I do!
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Book Reviews
The Witches by Roald Dahl: Book Review
Our young British protagonist and his Norwegian grandmother know something that we don’t: Witches are real and they live among us. They look like sweet neighbor ladies but they’re keeping a lot of secrets. Chief among them? They want to wipe out the children of the world.
When Grandmamma and Grandson (do we ever learn his name?) go on vacation to the coast of England, they stumble on the annual witches’ meeting, led by The Grand High Witch herself. The witches have a plan to eliminate all the children of England at once! That won’t happen if Grandmamma and Grandson have anything to say about it.
Confession: I remember starting to watch this movie when I was little and spending the night at my grandmother’s house but it scared me to death. We had to turn it off. I told my husband this and he asked, “How old were you?” I looked up the release date of The Witches . It came out when I was 12. 12! And I was probably 13 by the time it came out on video or on tv or however I happened to catch it! What can I say? I was sheltered. And Anjelica Huston intimidates me to this day. I can just imagine facing her as a tween, on a screen or not. *shudder*
Now that I’m firmly in my 30s, I’m brave enough to read the source. It was so much fun! It was (obviously) scary and suspenseful enough to satisfy most children but it had an element of silliness and impossibility that captures the imagination. There’s really no such thing as a bald witch with claws, no toes, blue spit, and a removable face. But what if there were ? *shiver*
I enjoyed Grandson’s bravery and Grandmamma’s willingness to let him take risks for his own well-being and that of others. How often do adults trust children with things like that? Probably not often enough if you’re looking through the eyes of a child. I also liked that Grandson turns what could be a disability into a strength. He never lets anything hold him back. In fact, he embraces the changes that come his way.
I absolutely loved the introduction, “A Note About 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.” And in a suitably alarming tone, the facts about witches are laid out.
I loved the illustrations by Quentin Blake as well. They were silly but scary enough to match the story.
There’s a group of sheltered kids, like me, who this won’t be appropriate for. But if you and/or your child like a fun little fright, give this one a try. I’m glad I finally gave the book a chance. Now maybe I’ll be brave enough to try the movie again for Halloween…
I wish I could find a source I really trusted for this, but many, many sites seem to agree that the reason The Witches has been banned/challenged is because it’s misogynistic. Too bad they all seem to refer back to the same article . We’ll go with that though. As a woman who shies away from the “feminist” label and the negative connotations its acquired, I do nevertheless consider myself to be a feminist in its most basic terms, i.e. equality. It never even crossed my mind that I should be offended by this book. It’s about witches. Witches are females. Always have been, probably always will be. Maybe a female author will write a children’s book entitled The Wizards or The Warlocks and even things up. As a child, how many authority figures that you interact with regularly are female? Moms, teachers, librarians, school bus drivers–mostly women, at least in my experience. I felt the book was supposed to be a little subversive and challenging to authority. That would be mostly women in a child’s world. I think that’s slowly changing but it’s still a reality today. And besides, all this just feels like someone is over thinking things. Grandmamma is obviously a woman and she’s a hero! Some people just have no sense of humor.
Read an excerpt .
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The Witches
By roald dahl.
- The Witches Summary
The unnamed protagonist, known only as the boy, moves in with his grandmother after he is left an orphan. The boy and his grandmother are great friends. She tells him many stories about witches, specifically how to recognize them so he will be safe from them. Aside from a few distinguishing physical characteristics (they are bald, have clawed hands, and lack toes), witches look like human women, but are awful creatures that prey on children.
The grandmother warns him about the Grand High Witch, the most evil and most feared leader of all the witches. When the grandmother and the boy go on a holiday to a fancy hotel on the English coast, the boy encounters a group of witches gathering for their yearly meeting. He overhears the grand witch introducing her new invention, something she calls Formula 86, a potion to turn children into mice. The witch explains her plan of putting the potion in candy and having the witches all open sweet shops. As part of her presentation, the Grand High Witch lures a boy named Bruno Jenkins who is a guest in the hotel and turns him into a mouse. After discovering the boy, the witches turn the boy into a mouse as well.
The boy finds Bruno and realizes that both of them still regain their personalities, voices and intelligence despite being transformed. The boy comes up with a plan to turn all the witches into mice by stealing some of the potion and putting it into the witches' food. The plan succeeds: all the witches are instantly transformed into mice, and then killed by the hotel staff and guests.
After returning home, the boy and the grandmother come up with a plan to use the potion to eradicate all of the witches in the world. The boy is still a mouse, and will only live another nine years; but he is not concerned by this, since he will live as long as his grandmother.
The Witches Questions and Answers
The Question and Answer section for The Witches is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.
I'm sorry, this is a short-answer literature forum designed for text specific questions. The Witches is a novel by Roald Dahl.
what makes a witch so dangerous
I think they have a list of things that make them dangerous:
They hate children and enjoy getting rid of them.
They have magic
They seem like normal ladies yet are really dangerous.
Is there a way of mixing two differnt types of witches?
I'm not sure if witch specialties are mixed. You might have to inquire at Witch University or Hogwarts.
Study Guide for The Witches
The Witches study guide contains a biography of Roald Dahl, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
- About The Witches
- Character List
Wikipedia Entries for The Witches
- Introduction
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When it came to dreaming up characters of cheeky grandiosity who were put on earth to act out their fear and loathing of children, Roald Dahl didn’t play. In 1961, his first classic novel, “James and the Giant Peach,” featured the loathsome Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker, who tormented James like nightmare Victorian spinsters out of Dickens. The title character of “The Enormous Crocodile” wants nothing more than to chomp down on children. In “Matilda,” Miss Trunchbull is a school headmistress so sadistic she’s like a bullying tyrant out of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” And in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” even that rock star of candy Willy Wonka can’t seem to make up his mind about whether he wants to delight children or unsettle them.
But in “ The Witches ,” Dahl really went all out. The book is a primal fairy tale, part Grimm and part flamboyant kiddie opera, about an orphan vacationing with his grandmother at a majestic hotel, where he has a run-in with a coven of witches. They’re attending a meeting presided over by the Grand High Witch, a preening fascist harpy who possesses a potion that can turn children into mice (which she wastes no time doing). Her signature trait, however, is the deluxe hatred that pours out of her like poison. Did Roald Dahl have some deep-seated personal issue (he spoke of the abusive behavior he experienced at boarding schools), or was he just a storyteller with the courage to create unbridled wackjob kiddie villains? Maybe a little of both.
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In the 1990 screen version of “The Witches,” directed by Nicolas Roeg, the Grand High Witch was played by Anjelica Huston in a performance of pure delectable scenery-eating kitsch. She was a comic foil out of Mel Brooks, and also the purest of monsters. Thirty years later, Robert Zemeckis has now directed a version that remains true to the novel (and also builds on the earlier film), and what he brings to it is his fusion of relatability and FX gizmo play. It’s nothing more than a baroque cartoon horror film (it stays right on the surface), but the best parts have a crackpot malevolence that’s hard to resist.
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Anne Hathaway , as the Grand High Witch, has been outfitted with a set of severe nightmare trappings that are sure to frighten little ones: a bald head concealed under a series of wigs that cause her to have a terrible scalp rash; arms that stretch out into groping mangled claws; a long middle toe on an otherwise truncated foot; and, most strikingly, a mouth extended back by scars (just like the Joker’s), which gives her an enlarged smile as creepy as the ones in the 1994 David Lynchian music video for Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun.”
The triumph of Hathaway’s performance is that she never allows the visual effects to dominate her; she acts from inside them, wearing them like makeup. Speaking in an accent that’s like Boris and Natasha by way of Donald Trump’s wives (“Vut vould you do if dere ver mice running all around dis hotel?”), she gives a seething performance that’s two parts “Mommie Dearest,” two parts Wicked Witch of the West, one part “Alejandro”-era Lady Gaga cranking up all the stops, one part Divine, and two parts meth junkie. It’s a whale of an over-the-top evil diva turn, one you can sit back and revel in just for how she pronounces the word “garlic” (“ goooord -lick!”). She makes Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent look like a wallflower. She’s high-camp funny but also genuinely threatening. All of which is to say that Hathaway acts this flamboyant she-demon with the conviction that only a sensational actor can bring to a throwaway movie.
The rest of “The Witches” is serviceable in a standard hellzapoppin’ way. For a while, it feeds on the audacity of transplanting the story to the American South, where our hero (Jahzir Bruno), an 8-year-old child in Demopolis, Alabama, in 1968 (in the credits he’s referred to simply as “Hero Boy”), loses his parents in a car accident and moves in with his warm, wise, whiskey-swilling Grandma (Octavia Spencer).
She tries to lighten his mood with fried chicken and cornbread and Motown tunes, but once they arrive at the Grand Orleans Imperial Island Hotel, a swank getaway set behind a curtain of magnolia trees along the Gulf of Mexico (her cousin is the executive chef there), the film mostly loses its real-world sense of period. There’s one eye-catching set: the Grand Imperial Ballroom, which looks like the Sistine Chapel by way of “The Shining.” It’s where the witches let their hair down, literally, under the guise of holding a convention of the International Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. And it’s where our hero gets vaporized by a vial of purple potion and turned into a mouse.
So does Bruno (Codie-Lei Eastick), a face-stuffing British kid, and Daisy (Kristin Chenoweth), the hero’s pet mouse, who it turns out has already been the victim of this transformation. The three are now CGI rodents scurrying around the ornate ledges and kitchen shelves of the hotel like something out of “Mousehunt” or “Ratatouille.” These scenes are fun in a logistically energized but slightly flavorless way. You could say that “The Witches” doesn’t have much in the way of emotional pull, and that there are too few layers to its battle against evil. Yet Anne Hathaway’s performance provides the film with a sick-joke center of gravity, and Zemeckis, sticking to Dahl’s elemental storyline, stages it all with a prankish flair that leaves you buzzed.
Reviewed online, Oct. 19, 2020. Rated: PG. Running time: 105 MIN.
- Production: An HBO Max release of a Warner Bros. presentation of an ImageMovers, Necropia, Esperanto Filmoj production. Producers: Robert Zemeckis, Jack Rapke, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, Luke Kelly. Executive producers: Jacqueline Levine, Marianne Jenkins, Michael Siegel, Gideon Simeloff, Cate Adams.
- Crew: Director: Robert Zemeckis. Screenplay: Robert Zemeckis, Kenya Barris. Camera: Don Burgess. Editors: Ryan Chan, Jeremiah O’Driscoll. Music: Alan Silvestri.
- With: Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Jahzir Bruno, Codie-Lei Eastick, Stanley Tucci, Chris Rock, Charles Edwards, Morgana Robinson, Eugenia Caruso, Simon Manyonda.
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Book Review
The witches.
Readability Age Range
- Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Books
- The Whitbread Award, 1983; Federation of Children's Book Groups Award in the UK, 1983;The New York TimesBook of the Year, 1983
Year Published
This fantasy book by Roald Dahl is published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Books. It has also been published by many other publishers.
The Witches is written for kids ages 7 and up. The age range reflects readability and not necessarily content appropriateness.
Plot Summary
An unnamed 7-year-old boy loses both parents in a car crash. He finds comfort with his Norwegian grandmother — a cigar-smoking senior with a penchant for telling tall tales. But what she tells him about witches isn’t just another story.
Witches, she insists, are real. They have blue saliva and large, scalloped nostrils that allow them to smell children from long distances. They wear gloves to hide their claws, wigs to hide their hairless scalps and fancy shoes to hide their toeless feet. Flames flicker deep within their ever-changing eyes, and they have one burning desire: to rid the world of children. Recognizing a witch before she tries to squelch you is a child’s only hope of survival. ( Squelching refers to the tactics witches use to get rid of children.)
In accordance with the wishes of his dead parents, the boy and his grandmother move to England. While there are fewer witches in England than in Norway, English witches have a reputation for being vicious. On one occasion, the boy narrowly escapes being squelched by hiding in a tree until suppertime. The boy and his grandmother plan to spend their summer vacation in Norway, but his grandmother falls ill and is unable to go. Instead, they book two rooms at a hotel in Bournemouth, England. The boy’s grandmother gives him a present of two white mice to keep him occupied during their stay.
While trying to find a quiet place where he can train his mice to walk a tightrope, the boy stumbles across an empty ballroom reserved for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (RSPCC). Assuming the meeting has already occurred, the boy hides behind a screen at the back of the room. But when the room begins to fill with women, the boy realizes they are witches in disguise. He watches the Grand High Witch take off her mask and reveal her ugly, rotting face. He sees her fry another witch to death by shooting sparks out of her eyes. He listens to her expound on her plan to squelch all of the children in England by turning them into mice, using her newly developed Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker.
The boy sees Formula 86 in action when a gluttonous boy, Bruno Jenkins, arrives and demands six chocolate bars that the Grand High Witch had promised him if he showed up at the meeting. Bruno is transformed into a mouse but runs away before the Grand High Witch can kill him. Just as the meeting is ending, a witch smells the boy hiding behind the screen. After a brief chase, he is captured and forced to swallow the contents of an entire bottle of Formula 86. He turns into a mouse and runs away to find his grandmother, who is understandably shocked at his transformation.
She recovers rapidly and helps the boy (now a mouse) hatch a vengeful plot against the witches. The mouse-boy steals a bottle of Formula 86 and pours it into the pea soup the witches will consume for dinner. Massively overdosed, the witches turn into mice in the hotel dining room and are promptly dispatched — and dismembered — by the hotel kitchen staff. The boy’s grandmother returns Bruno, as a mouse, to his family.
The mouse-boy’s grandmother takes him to her home in Norway where she modifies her house so he can live in it more comfortably. He learns that as a mouse, he has a shorter life span and will likely not outlive his grandmother. Far from being disappointed at the news, he is glad that he will never have to face life without her. His grandmother learns that the Grand High Witch’s secret headquarters are located in a Norwegian Castle. As a mouse, the boy is now in a position to sneak into the castle and turn all the witches into mice. (Cats will then be introduced to solve the mouse problem.) He and his grandmother plan to travel the world for the rest of their lives, until they have turned every witch into a mouse.
Christian Beliefs
The boy’s grandmother believes her soul will go to heaven when she dies. She attends church daily and prays before every meal. Crossing your heart and praying to heaven is mentioned as a last-ditch attempt to escape being squelched. The Devil is described as a being that people know exists, even though nobody has ever seen him.
Other Belief Systems
Witches, while real, are not human. They are described as animals or demons in human form and are members of an organized secret society. They have access to powerful magic, which they use primarily to squelch children in remarkably creative ways. To a witch, children smell worse than fresh dog droppings. A witchophile is described as someone who studies witches. Ghouls and barghests are mentioned.
Authority Roles
The boy is closer to his grandmother than to his parents. His grandmother respects the parents’ last wishes by moving from Norway to England so the boy can continue his education at a British school. While his grandmother is a formidable woman, her unconditional love and care for the boy are apparent throughout the book.
Profanity & Violence
There are several uses of heck . Other epithets include Oh heavens and Jeepers Creepers . Creative insults include boshvolloping and brainless bogvumper .
The boy’s parents die in a car accident. The boy is also in the car but escapes with only a cut. The boy is traumatized by the event, but few details are mentioned. The boy’s grandmother is missing a thumb. It is suggested that her thumb was lost during a childhood encounter with a witch. The boy speculates about how it could have been removed: twisted off, burned by a boiling kettle or pulled right off her hand.
Squelching is a term used to describe how a witch gets rid of a child. Some squelchings are more macabre than others. In one case, a boy is turned into a talking porpoise, but another child turns to stone and yet another child becomes a figure in an oil painting. One of the witches’ favorite ways to squelch a child is to transform it into a creature that adults will kill, such as a mouse, slug or flea. Witches take special pleasure in transforming children into animals that adults will kill and then eat, such as a pheasant or mackerel. It is said that American witches turn children into hotdogs, which are then consumed — with relish — by their parents. During some squelchings, the victims’ skin shrivels.
Beneath her beautiful mask, the Grand High Witch has a terrible, rotting face. She kills another witch by shooting sparks out of her eyes. The sparks burrow into the victim’s skin until she is nothing but a pile of ashes that smells of burnt meat. She also sings a violent song about squelching children, expressing the desire to boil their bones, fry their skin and otherwise bash, mash, shake, slash and smash them to bits. When the boy’s pet mice run into the open, the Grand High Witch kicks them viciously.
The recipe for making Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker includes chopping the tails off mice and frying them in hair oil, then simmering the mouse bodies in frog juice.
The boy feels his school is a cruel place. On one occasion, a boy with nits was forced to dip his head in turpentine, which lifted the skin off his scalp. Bruno Jenkins kills ants using a magnifying glass. The main character pushes him to make him stop. Children — and witches — are turned into mice and then killed.
Sexual Content
When the boy’s grandmother tells a taxi driver that the mouse she is speaking to is actually her grandson, the taxi driver remarks that mice are quick breeders, and she should expect great-grandchildren shortly. As a mouse, the boy runs up a man’s trouser leg and then runs down the other leg. Too late, the man takes off his pants to get rid of the mouse.
Discussion Topics
If your children have read this book or someone has read it to them, consider these discussion topics:
- Why doesn’t the main character like Bruno Jenkins?
- How does the Bible say we should care for animals?
What would you do if you saw someone being cruel to animals?
Why do people eat more than they need?
- Why do people boast about how much stuff they own?
How can you keep from eating and having more than you need?
How do the boy and his grandmother plan to get rid of all the witches?
- Do you think they will succeed? Explain.
- What would you do if you were in the boy’s place?
Are he and his grandmother doing the right thing? Explain.
The boy has a very close relationship with his grandmother.
- Which trusted adults in your life do you most enjoy spending time with?
- Do you share any special activities or traditions together?
- What do you like most about these people?
- What lessons could you learn from them?
Additional Comments
Smoking: The boy’s grandmother smokes cigars. She offers him one, saying that if he smokes he won’t catch a cold.
This review is brought to you by Focus on the Family, a donor-based ministry. Book reviews cover the content, themes and world-views of fiction books, not their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. A book’s inclusion does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.
You can request a review of a title you can’t find at [email protected] .
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Grandmamma smokes cigars. Parents need to know that Roald Dahl's 1983 book The Witches is a highly entertaining fantasy novel with scary and suspenseful scenes. A young orphaned boy goes to live with his grandmother in Norway, and she tells her grandson true (in the world of the book) facts about witches. Dahl's superior inventiveness….
THE GRAPHIC NOVEL. A helter-skelter take on Dahl's gleefully gross rodentine ruckus. Even being transformed into a mouse doesn't keep an 8-year-old orphan boy from turning the tables on a convention of child-hating witches in this graphic makeover of the classic novel from 1983. Generous use of wordless panels and close-up, exaggerated ...
This book is, I'd argue, far more serious than it lets on. One final curiosity: The Witches has been occasionally banned for perceived misogyny. I find this critique amusing, especially in light of the fact that many classic adult works have remained in those libraries — and if you spend any time among classic works of literature, you'll ...
The Witches is a 1983 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. ... It received mixed reviews and was criticised for misogyny. In 2012, the book was ranked number 81 among all-time best children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal, a US monthly.
Book Review: The Witches by Roald Dahl. - January 15, 2020. Not too long ago, I was reminded of the movie The Witches that came out in 1990. The first time I watched the movie was when I rented it from a video store in middle school for a slumber party. I remember being completely freaked out by the movie, so much so that I made my dad watch it ...
THE BOY WHO BECAME A MOUSE. THE WITCHES, By Roald Dahl. Illustrated by Quentin Blake. 202 pp. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $10.95. (Ages 9 and Up) ROALD DAHL knows every bit as well as Bruno Bettelheim that children love the macabre, the terrifying, the mythic. In his latest book, ''The Witches,'' a 7-year-old orphan boy, cared for by his ...
THE WITCHES. by Roald Dahl illustrated by Quentin Blake ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1983. By a talky, roundabout route, Dahl slyly (if deterringly) takes the narrator—ostensibly himself at seven—into the delicious, ambiguous situation of being a mouse-boy. . . who turns the tables on his tormentors. We first hear about witches: they spend ...
Review: The Witches. No Halloween book line-up could be complete without the master of strange, Roald Dahl. He may be overtly known for his nonsense stories, but Dahl was also a writer of eerie renown and The Witches is one of his best. The thing about Roald Dahl is that he not only writes amazing stories, he writes well.
These witches have been walking among the earth for centuries and centuries, always on the lookout to quench their sinister thirsts of killing children. The despise each and every child and their sole reason for existence is to make sure each and every one of them perish in a terrifying and senseless manner. The narrator and his grandmamma live ...
Read my book review of Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich, a funny mystery with a dash of romance in the ongoing Stephanie Plum series. ... The Witches by Roald Dahl: Book Review September 23, 2014 No Comments. I have an affiliate relationship with Bookshop.org and Malaprop's Bookstore in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at ...
The Witches Summary. The unnamed protagonist, known only as the boy, moves in with his grandmother after he is left an orphan. The boy and his grandmother are great friends. She tells him many stories about witches, specifically how to recognize them so he will be safe from them. Aside from a few distinguishing physical characteristics (they ...
Roald Dahl, Robert Zemeckis, The Witches. 'The Witches' Review: Anne Hathaway Gives a Flamboyantly Fun High-Camp Evil Performance in Robert Zemeckis' Hellzapoppin' Remake. Reviewed online ...
This review is brought to you by Focus on the Family, a donor-based ministry. Book reviews cover the content, themes and world-views of fiction books, not their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. A book's inclusion does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.
Customers find the book fun, poetic, and a classic for many generations. They also describe the storyline as fantastical, with funny visuals. Opinions differ on readability and scariness, with some finding it easy to read and imaginative, while others find the reading hard to listen to and understand. AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
The Witchesis a popular children's book written by Roald Dahl. In this book, a boy's parents die in a car crash, so he goes to live in Norway with his grandmother. She tells him stories about witches, who have claws instead of finger nails, bald heads, large nose holes, square feet, and blue spit. The grandmother tells her grandson that all ...
The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer provides an account of a foundational American tragedy of mass hysteria and injustice. At its best, the latest work from Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life, 2010, etc.) ably weaves together all the assorted facts and many personalities from the 1692 Salem witch trials and provides genuine insight into a 17th-century culture that was barely a few steps away from ...
678 reviews. Witches really are a detestable breed. They disguise themselves as lovely ladies, when secretly they want to squish and squelch all the wretched children they despise. ... Really liked this book. The grandma and the grand high witch were my favourite characters. Would recommend this book to others! 07 Feb 2024. Very interesting and ...
In Michaelbrent Collings' The Witch in the Woods, modern sci-fiction meets the fantasy world of fairytale to give kids, who like a lot of magic and mystery, a story to enjoy. Willow and Jake ...
Right now I am reading 2024 Reading Goal and book club books, writing books, and just doing an enormous mass of other things from the TBR. Some of the upcoming book reviews include A Long Petal of the Sea, Isabel Allende, Trespasses, Louise Kennedy, and Stay True, Hua Hsu. I am currently reading Kingdom of Copper and The Empire of Gold, S. A. Chakraborty, and White Noise, Don DeLillo.
The Witches, by Stacy Schiff. Review by Brit McGinnis. The narrative pushed by history buffs about the Salem Witch Trials is that the victims of this hysterical part of American history were wise women who had rare knowledge. But the truth is much more complicated. In her book, The Witches, author Stacy Schiff challenges us to think past our ...
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Whether the witches are good, misunderstood, or just plain wicked — some fun fall fantasy reading options include The Witches of Bone Hill, Night of the Witch, and After the Forest.
The witch trial of George Jacobs, painted by Thompkins H. Matteson in 1855. There is honestly WAY too much amazing content and detail in this book to even begin to summarize. Schiff explores the whole phenomenon from beginning to end in brilliant detail, painting a remarkably vivid picture of Salem in 1692 and the forces that overcame the town.
Release date: Aug. 23, 2022 This cozy book about a (very) secret society of powerful (and irregular) witches was one of the best fiction books that I read last year. Mika Moon is a solitary witch ...
The Hedge Witch is a novella by Cari Thomas, set in the world of her Threadneedle trilogy. It takes place the summer before the events of Threadneedle, and only features one character from the main trilogy; Anna's friend Rowan. So if you haven't read the other books, you can dive into this one without needing any prior knowledge.
Don't let another year slip by without fully embracing your magickal potential. Order your 2025 Witches Planner today and step into a year filled with enchantment, clarity, and purpose. Whether you're a seasoned witch or just beginning your magickal path, this planner is your perfect companion for a mystical 2025. Book Includes: Glossy Cover ...
Share your honest review. Discover hundreds of other books in your favorite genres. Menu. ... Dante's life with witches is an inseparable part of his story. After years of world travel to meet and live among them, he was able to gain the insights key to writing this book. These revelations were by no means easy to receive.
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