Book Review: The Witches

In fairy-tales, witches 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 work in ORDINARY JOBS.

That is why they are so hard to catch.

 

Roald Dahl’s “The Witches” is a book about a young boy whose parents have just died in a car crash. He lives with his Norwegian grandmother (he calls her ‘Grandmama’), who in her younger years was a ‘witchophile’. The thumb on one of her hands is gone. She refuses to tell why, though, which leads her grandson thinking about all the horrible ways she could have lost it, and if it was because of the witches.

She tells the boy (whose name in the movie is Luke) about witches, and how to spot one. She is always full of stories about children who had been caught by the witches and put under spells. In the book, the witches are notorious for finding sneaky ways to kill children, who they say smell like “fresh dogs’ droppings.” She tells him to only take a bath once a month at most because the dirt can help to mask the stinky scent he gives out to the witches. Some of the witches turn children into pests that the adults will kill, or turn them into food that the adults will eat without knowing it’s their children. She tells him about the Grand High Witch, who is the leader of all the witches around the whole world. She is most feared in the Witch World. The boy’s first encounter with a witch happens when he is outside building a tree house. He sees all the signs his grandmother told him to look for to confirm whether or not a woman is a witch, and he realizes she is trying to get him so she could do something to him. The witch attempts to lure him out of the tree by giving him a bright green snake. When this happens, he climbs further up the tree and waits for his grandmother to come and get him.

Luke and his grandmother take a vacation to a fancy hotel in England, where Luke brings his two pet mice, William and Mary. While they are at the hotel, he is trying to teach them to walk on a tightrope, and he goes off into an empty room for big parties in the hotel. He sits behind a folding screen training his mice when an entire group of ladies who call themselves the “Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.” Luke stays hidden behind the screen as all the women take their seats. Another woman comes in and stands up on the stage. She is no taller than about four and a half feet tall. She has a funny way of speaking, saying all her Rs like rrrrrr, and all her Ws like Vs. She also says Inkland, instead of England. She tells all the women in the room to remove their gloves, and as they all remove them, Luke sees their hands-with long curvy nails like a cat’s claws. Next, she tells them to remove their shoes. They all do that and to Luke’s horror, not one of them has toes. She then tells them all to remove their wigs (which she says like “You may rrree-moof your vigs!”). Luke is still hidden behind the screen as he realizes with shock that all the women there are witches. Then the small woman commanding all the others takes off her mask, which looks exactly like a human face. Her face is absolutely hideous and is described as, “all cankered and worm-eaten”. Luke determines that she is the Grand High Witch, and stays very still, practicly frozen with shock. After a long speech, she reveals a small bottle, labeled as Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker. The Grand High Witch pulls out a suitcase of money, which she says she printed herself with her money-maker, and hands each witch a stack of money. She says it is to be used to buy sweet-shops. She then explains that it the formula is a potion that turns anyone who takes a dose of it into a mouse. Not right away, though. Her plan is that all the children will head to the sweet-shops after school, and then they will eat the candy and the next morning as they go to school, they will turn into a mouse, which will lead the adults to bring out mouse traps resulting in the mice-children being killed by the adults, as the poor adults don’t even know it’s their children. Each bottle contains 500 doses (one drop is good for one person). Then there is a knock on the door, and they all put their disguises back on. The Grand High Witch goes over and opens the door, letting in a boy named Bruno Jenkins. A chubby boy who was only there because she had promised him free chocolate. The day before, she had given him chocolate with the Mouse-Maker on it, and the real reason he was there was so that the other witches could see the formula in action. In approximately 27 seconds, Bruno has finished transforming into a mouse, and runs off.  Suddenly, one of Luke’s mice runs out from behind the screen, and one of the witches shouts out, “Dogs’ droppings! I smell dogs’ droppings!” causing all of them to start frantically search for the source of the smell. They find Luke and drag him up onto the stage then they poor an entire bottle (500 doeses) of the Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker into his mouth and he immediately turns into a mouse. He runs off to find his grandmother, who is very sad by this turn of events, but she helps him as he is a mouse. She helps him sneak into the Grand High Witch’s hotel room to steal a bottle of the Mouse-Maker, and then into the kitchen where he pours the entire bottle into the soup being specially made for the witches (sadly, he does not escape before getting part of his tail cut off). The witches eat the soup, resulting in all of them being turned into mice. The book ends happily with Luke and his grandmother safely at their home, and Luke accepts the fact that as a human-turned-mouse he will only live for about nine more years. He says that he doesn’t want to live longer than his grandmother anyway, and concludes that they will live and die together peacefully.

This is one of the best books I’ve read (I like all Roald Dahl books), and I give it

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

How to Recognize a Witch

• A REAL WITCH always wears gloves. Even on the hottest summer days. This is because they have long, curvy fingernails like a cat’s claws.
• A REAL WITCH is “bald as a boiled egg.” Except they wear the finest quality wigs, except because they have no hair, they get “wig rash” from the itchy wig being directly on their scalps. 
• A REAL WITCH’s nostrils are abnormally large, with a pink rim like seashells.
• A REAL WITCH’s black part of her eye is constantly changing color. “…you will see fire, and you will see ice dancing right in the very centre of the coloured dot.”
• A REAL WITCH has no toes. The end of her foot is just square. To conceal this, she will still wear pretty pointed shoes, except it is very painful for them.
• A  REAL WITCH’s spit is blue. “Blue as a bilberry.” It is rumored they even use their spit as ink when writing letters.