Product Description

Classic Dahl in an enticing, collectable new format.

“REAL WITCHES dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women. They live in ordinary houses and they work in ORDINARY JOBS.”

So you could be living right next door to a witch and you’d never even know it! Luckily, this story, about the defeat of the gruesome Grand High Witch and her evil cronies, points out the vital clues.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #752594 in Books
• Published on: 1987-12-27
• Released on: 1987-12-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

From Amazon.com
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. Ages 7-12.

From AudioFile
Marsh's performance has a sinister side that may be too scary to the audience Dahl intends to delight. The abridgment cuts too much context, which would otherwise mitigate frightening details. R.F.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Ingram
Meet a hero, a wise old grandmother, and the most gruesome, grotesque gang ofwitches imaginable.

Customer Reviews

The Witches
The Witches

Witches are make believe people that can do magic, but once you read The Witches by Roahl Dahl you might rethink what you believe in. "A REAL WITCH is one of the most dangerous of all the living creatures on earth." The two main characters are the grandson and the grandmother. The grandson and his grandmother have a plan to ruin the witches and stop kids from disappearing off the earth. The story varies between hiding in a conference room where you could be vanished or turned into a mouse and going into the high witches room and steal their key to vanishing children (delayed mouse maker) from Norway or the earth or climbing a tree for your life.

Roalh Dahl creates character that you can't believe. The grandma in this book is not what you would picture a grandma. Her job was a job that you didn't even know exists! A withogrophist (someone who studies witches) she is very strong and won't give up on something that she has set her mind to. She can survive through what no grandma has before and came out of it very healthy. The grandmother is my favorite character and I love the way he put the characters together. The grandson is very brave when misfortunes happen to him, is determined when he sets his mind to something and he would risk his life for other kids.

Roil Dahl's ideas are nothing like an idea that you would see in a book and they are very unique, I would say they are very good and creative. He uses an idea (like witches) that isn't necessarily real and makes them as real as ever and makes you wonder and look out for woman with gloves, wigs and that totter a lot in your neighborhood. He thinks in the mind of the character and plans what their next move would be when they wanted to over come all the high witches and he thought how they would. And he won't stop creating unique and great ideas.

The book takes place in the Grandmas house in Norway where she tells her grandson about the witches and what they do to you. She also tells him stories about what happened to kids that ran into witches. It also took place at a hotel in England by the shore, which I think is a good place for a story because it feels like there is more of a chance of mischief to be done there because it is so big. In the hotel the grandson gets into a misfortune in the conference room and a mission in the kitchen to save the other kids. This setting is effective because the reason he is there is because he can't get caught playing with his mice and a ball room which was used as a conference room is a good place to hide if you think about it.

In this book there are three main themes. One theme is not to judge people by their looks. I learned this by reading about a very pretty lady and it looked like she was very nice but she actually was a witch and she could've done something to the grandson. The second theme is not to go where you shouldn't because you could get into a lot of trouble like turning into a mouse or getting caught by the grouchy manager. And my last theme is to keep away or don't go with people you don't know or could be dangerous. I learned this when the grandson avoided a woman with gloves scratches her head and he avoided her and being vanished off the earth too.

Roahl Dahl is one of my favorite writers and I think you will like him too. I loved this book and I would definitely recommend it to you because it is full of adventure suspense and on the occasion a very funny part. This book is for ages 6-11 I think. After reading this book it made me feel like there might actually be witches. And if you read I think you'll love this book too.

Another Wonderful Book by Roald Dahl!
They are completely bald and always wear wigs, constantly sneaking hands underneath to scratch their itchy scalps. They don't have any toes and have really broad feet, but they force their feet into narrow, fashionable shoes to blend in. They have really long, curved fingernails that they usually hide by wearing gloves. They are the witches. And the meanest, nastiest witches live in England, where a boy has just gone to live with his grandmother after his parent's tragic death.

His grandmother always warned the boy about suspecting nice women who offer him candy - check for gloves, wigs and pinched feet. He is able to avoid the witches until his grandmother becomes ill and they go to a seaside resort where the English witches are having a convention just like normal people in the hotel. Stunned, the boy overhears the grand witch's plot to eliminate all of the children in England by feeding them candy that will turn them into mice! When he is discovered, the boy knows that the witches are going to kill him, but they test the potion on him instead. Now in mouse form, the boy and his grandmother must use all of their wits and cleverness to defeat the witches' evil scheme!

The Witches is a highly entertaining book by the always inventive Roald Dahl. You would think that a book about witches would be scary, but Roald Dahl has just the right combination of humor and lightheartedness to balance out the scariness. I loved this book when I was growing up and have enjoyed sharing it with my younger siblings and nephews. It is true that it has a couple of slow parts as the author takes the time to set up the story, but the storyline is just so imaginative that you get caught up in the story and don't really notice until you have read it a couple of times. With all of the many details, Roald Dahl can easily convince you that witches are real and that there really are women out there like that! Humor aside, it does show that you should never take candy from strangers - no matter what they look like! Although this book is great for reading alone, it is best when real aloud and shared with children, who always know the right parts to gasp at!

The Witches
A young boy's parents who dies in a car crash and he has to go and live with his grandma in Norway. There are alot of vocabulary in this book you should read! I learned that witches wear wigs so if you read this book, you will learn alot about witches.
I recommend this book review by Rould Dahl