The Witches
by Roald Dahl
Fantasy, Fiction, Classics, Middle-Grade, Young-Adult, Witches
This is not a fairy-tale. This is about real witches. Real witches don’t ride around on broomsticks. They don’t even wear black cloaks and hats. They are vile, cunning, detestable creatures who disguise themselves as nice, ordinary ladies. So how can you tell when you’re face to face with one? Well, if you don’t know yet you’d better find out quickly-because there’s nothing a witch loathes quite as much as children and she’ll wield all kinds of terrifying powers to get rid of them.
Recommendations from Common Sense Media
Age Recommendation: 9+
What 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.
Educational Value: 1/5
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: 2/5
Even the tiniest creature can be a hero.
Positive Role Models: 2/5
The little boy uses his intelligence and problem-solving skills to beat the witches with their own tricks.
Violence & Scariness: 3/5
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.
Sex, Romance & Nudity: n/a
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Language: n/a
No profanity, but the witches talk about kids smelling like “poo” or “dog’s droppings.”
Products & Purchases: n/a
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Drinking, Drugs & Smoking: 1/5
Grandmamma smokes cigars.
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