The+Witches

Joshua Tsao The Witches book review Author: Ronald Dahl Number of pages: 250

The Witches is an interesting fiction novel by Ronald Dahl that is based on his childhood experience with his grandmother in Norway. But instead of just writing about himself, he transformed the young Ranold Dahl into a boy (with no name). Then improvised the plot of the story into a story with witches and magic.

The story takes place in Europe; Norway and England to be exact. It started with a boy with his family enjoying their summer vacation by visiting Norway to see his grandmother. But his parents died in a car crash. Which left the boy who were in great depression the only person alive along with his grandmother in her big mansion up on a hill of Otto. The boy and his gandmother relied on eachother, they had nothing to do. So one day, the grandmother started telling stories about witches to boys in order to pacify the boy's painful childhood memory. However, after Boy's family's unfortunate death, Boy and grandmama were forced to move back to England according to his father's will.

At the begging, the boy thought it was just a fable of some sort, "Your a liar grandmama". But as his grandmama went on, the boy was being drawn into the provoking "fairytale" of her grandmama's. Grandmama told him how to identify a witch; no toes, bald but wears a wig, spits blue spits, and wears gloves everyday in order to cover up their claws. Grandmama also taught Boy how to prevent them. As days went by Boy was getting interested, frightened as well. He was starting to believe his grandmama from the tales of witches and how the witches were kidnapping innocent children. Yet he was still uncertain of the fact that witches really exists... until one day he actually saw one at his backyard, he was terrified. Ever since Boy's witch incident, he believed it all, in fact, he became more aware of his surroundings. "For all you know, a witch might be living next door to you right now. Or she even might be the woman with the bright eyes who sat opposite you on the bus this morning. might be the lady with the dazzling smile who offered you a sweet from a white paper bag in the street before lunch. might even- and this will make you jump- she might even be your lovely school teacher who is reading theses words to you are this very moment."

"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." Boy's grandmother always warned the boy about suspecting nice women who offer him candy - check for gloves, wigs and pinched feet. He was being able to avoid 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. However, Boy and his friend Burno was being turned into mice but somehow they managed to escap e to Boy's grandmama. Then, grandmama, Burno, and Boy decided to revenge and turn the witches into mouses in return by using Grand High Withes Formula 86 Delayed Mouse-Catcher. Will Boy, Burno, and grandmama succeed? Will the witches turn into mouses? Or will grandmama, Boy, and Burno get caught by the witches and get turn into animals of some sort? Read it and find out.

Reflection: I thought this book was fun to read, it is easy to understand and has a nice plot. I liked Ronald Dahl's idea of transforming what actually happened to him into a story with much more fun and adventures. It is much like a "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan that we are reading right now in English class. Where Amy Tan also excerpted a part of her childhood experience into a story of WW2. I enjoyed the Witches a lot, and I would recommend it to fiction book readers who "just" enjoys reading regardless of difficulty.