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The Witches by [Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake]

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Roald Dahl

The Witches Kindle Edition

by Roald Dahl (Author), Quentin Blake (Illustrator) Format: Kindle Edition

5,355 ratings

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From the World's No. 1 Storyteller, The Witches is a children's classic that has captured young reader's imaginations for generations.

This is not a fairy tale. This is about real witches.

Grandmamma loves to tell about witches. Real witches are the most dangerous of all living creatures on earth. There's nothing they hate so much as children, and they work all kinds of terrifying spells to get rid of them. Her grandson listens closely to Grandmamma's stories—but nothing can prepare him for the day he comes face-to-face with The Grand High Witch herself!

Now a major motion picture!

Reading age

7 - 10 years, from customers
Print length

207 pages
Language

English
Grade level

3 - 7
Lexile measure

740L
Publisher

Viking Books for Young Readers
Publication date

August 16, 2007
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ISBN-13

978-0142410110
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From the Publisher


Matilda Wormwood is only five years old, but she is a genius. Unfortunately, her parents are too stupid to even notice. Worse, her horrible headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, is a bully who makes life difficult—especially for Matilda's teacher, Miss Honey, and her friends. However, what Miss Trunchbull doesn't know is that Matilda is an incredibly clever child and has a trick or two up her sleeve...	Nobody has seen Willy Wonka—or the inside of his amazing chocolate factory—in years. When Wonka announces his plans to invite the winners of five Golden Tickets to visit his factory, the whole world is after those tickets! Little Charlie Bucket longs to find a Golden Ticket and get the chance to visit the mysterious factory and well, he has just as much chance as anyone else, doesn’t he?	James Henry Trotter lives with his two horrid aunts, Spiker and Sponge, who never let him have fun or play with other children. He hasn't got a single friend in the whole wide world. That is, not until he meets the Old Green Grasshopper and the rest of the insects aboard a giant, magical peach!	The Big Friendly Giant, BFG, is unlike other giants. For a start, he’d rather eat repulsant snozzcumbers than chomp on innocent children—lucky for little Sophie, he is far too nice and jumbly. It's not long before the BFG becomes Sophie's very best friend, and the pair are hatching a clever plan to deal with the cruel and nasty giants—with a very exceptional ally.


	Matilda	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	James and the Giant Peach	The BFG	The Witches

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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. --This text refers to the cassette edition.

About the Author

Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was born in Llandaff, South Wales, and went to Repton School in England. His parents were Norwegian, so holidays were spent in Norway. As he explains in Boy, he turned down the idea of university in favor of a job that would take him to 'a wonderful faraway place'. In 1933 he joined the Shell Company, which sent him to Mombasa in East Africa. When World War II began in 1939 he became a fighter pilot and in 1942 was made assistant air attaché in Washington, where he started to write short stories. His first major success as a writer for children was in 1964. Thereafter his children's books brought him increasing popularity, and when he died children mourned the world over, particularly in Britain where he had lived for many years.

The BFG is dedicated to the memory of Roald Dahl's eldest daughter, Olivia, who died from measles when she was seven – the same age at which his sister had died (fron appendicitis) over forty years before.

Quentin Blake, the first Children’s Laureate of the United Kingdom, has illustrated most of Roald Dahl’s children’s books.

From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to the cassette edition.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00INIYHJQ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Viking Books for Young Readers; Reprint edition (August 16, 2007)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 16, 2007
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 8408 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 207 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #148,753 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #52 in Children's Multigenerational Families
- #208 in Children's Classic Literature
- #250 in Children's Humorous Action & Adventure

Customer Reviews:
5,355 ratings

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Roald Dahl

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The son of Norwegian parents, Roald Dahl was born in Wales in 1916 and educated at Repton. He was a fighter pilot for the RAF during World War Two, and it was while writing about his experiences during this time that he started his career as an author.

His fabulously popular children's books are read by children all over the world. Some of his better-known works include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, Matilda, The Witches, and The BFG.

He died in November 1990.

Customer reviews

5 star		87%
4 star		9%
3 star		2%
2 star		1%
1 star		1%

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Jay Jay

Hard to understand

Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2019

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We bought this to listen to on a road trip and it’s awful! The accent makes it hard for children to understand and they go from whispering to screaming. My son is 8 and he liked this book when I read it to him but he was frustrated with the audiobook

22 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Terrified me as a kid, and my kids loved it

Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2018

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Dahl at his best. Reading in 2018 and post-Harry Potter, I did find it was a little negative on women being the only witches. Why not warlocks? But that's cultural PC crap intruding into my brain - I'd prefer to push it out. The book is great. I'd say 8+ is ideal.

27 people found this helpful

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APK

Really?

Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2022

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Roald Dahl mysogenist? From this book?
The Jew Hating children’s author, and feeling of Anglo/Saxon Supremacy aside usually doesn’t permeate into his stories?
So going back to the first claim relating to this ridiculous story.
1. Feigning a Baltic accent so witches sounds like vitches in written form to the perceived negative connotation for the name of the female Canine is a stretch.
2. Be him or his editor…He does go out of his way of emphasizing technically they’re not women or men, but can only disguise themselves as women, as ghouls can only be men.
Then he continues to use the “women” and “vitches” interchangeably.
The boy turned mouse for his age and trauma is either very young and doesn’t comprehend his predicament.
Even though written in the 1980s not the 1880s…a school aged child who while with his parents never heard or experienced anything with witches, suddenly he’s in a hotel full of them.
He’s doesn’t come of even as basically intelligent.
I don’t know perhaps because it’s a later work, there appears to be repetition, and simply bad values. The basic message is it’s what’s on the inside….in the most hyperbolic ways…celebrating the abolishment of women who wear wigs (Islamic and Orthodox Jewish women cover their hair. The witches are given “religious” satanic characteristics. E.G. looking in their eyes was like looking into the eyes of a serpent.
The basic story is just a variation of Hansel and Gretel with the wonderful tradition of the recorded heart warming stories like “The Jew in Thorns”…and the belief of “hoof like feet” but the child is not saved from the “evil vitches”.
There maybe some subconscious fantasizing by the author that he wishes he was incredibly fast and fairly invisible as a child and did not relate well at all to his own parents. He may even be pointing out a perceived hypocrisy that their overbearing rules left him unscathed, and the hypocritical parental figures skid and just die…with a page dedicated to the protagonist crying while hugging his cigar smoking grandmother.
Another issue especially if a 9/10 yo is reading, the love/hate of the phallic symbol, and obsession with uprooting, and destroying Witches as a new purpose in life…sounds like hunting terrorists?
On a basic level feelings of loss, true fear and abandonment, the taking “beauty is skin deep” way too far, and the child is left never knowing how grandmama lost a finger… was she Norwegian Akuza?
Compared to Harry Potter or the Phantom Toll booth…this particular book should not be a teacher recommended book… it’s a literary equivalent to Stephen King for children.

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Megasaurus

Formula 86 Delayed-Action Mouse Maker

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2012

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I first read this book when I was in the third grade, 25 years ago. I instantly decided then that it was my favorite book and I read and re-read it many times. I loved it. I recently took on a research project involving children's and young adult stories and have a long reading list of Children's stories to read - I put "The Witches" at the top of my list for nostalgia's sake, not sure what to expect.

As an adult, I can report, that it is simply a magnificent story. I can see why I loved it so much as a child. Dahl never dismisses the reader (children) as being inept. Like the Grandmother in the story, Dahl knows children don't require extreme coddling. He's not timid about using fear to tell a great story.

Parent's strive to create a safe world for their children. But that illusion is one that all parents must slowly deconstruct to prepare children for reality. Fairy tales are an integral part of that deconstruction. In fairy tales, monsters can exist in a way that allows children face their fears and walk through those fears to the other side where strength, courage and confidence are found.

"The Witches" is a frightening, yet thrilling read for children. Dahl is a masterful storyteller and in "The Witches" he has weaved imagination, fear and courage into a fantastically fun story that has stood the test of time and remains refreshingly relevant for each generation.

62 people found this helpful

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R. Day

Now one of my favorites!

Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2012

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Grandmother tells her grandson how to recognize a witch, what he should do if he sees one, how he can avoid being taken by a witch. The grandson listens carefully and keeps watch. She almost makes me believe there are witches. The grandson does have an encounter with not one witch but an entire conference room full of them. He is turned into a mouse. He is a clever boy and is able to escape. Instead of being depressed that he is now a mouse, he and grandma hatch a plan to put the witches out of business for good. He is the one with the ideas and Grandma is always amazed at his cleverness and helps him carry out his plan.

Another boy was also changed into a mouse. His parents are disgusted by him now that he is a mouse. Grandma is very sad that his parents don't love him just because he's a mouse. But Grandma continues to be loving and considerate. She re arranges the house so her grandson/mouse can be safe and independent. She carries him in her purse when they go out. The adventure with the witches is funny and clever but the real story was in the tenderness between Grandmother and Grandson. As the boy/mouse considers his new reality he asks her how long a mouse would live. She is honest as well as hopeful. A mouse does not live as long as a boy would. But he isn't an ordinary mouse so he will live longer than an ordinary mouse.

I liked Roald Dahl before but this book sealed him as one of my favorite authors.

23 people found this helpful

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Lawrence M. Sanger

Another Dahl winner

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2017

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Any full-length novel by Roald Dahl (we've read almost all of them) is going to be excellent, a mixture of zaniness, intelligence, and wonder. Here we have the familiar contrast of appalling or even evil adults alongside much friendlier and more sympathetic ones, with the hapless child thrown into weird and frightening situations and bravely plunging in.

12 people found this helpful

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Jessica McDonald

Better for an older child

Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2020

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My 8, almost 9, year old likes this book. My 6 year old only listened the first time I read and now she is a bit scared by it. I started off reading them James and the Giant Peach, which they both loved so much! I thought we would try another by Dahl, but we might wait another year or two before we start it again.

One person found this helpful

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J. Ang

As Long As There is Love

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 13, 2018

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What a delightful and wickedly funny book! Ostensibly about scary witches that kill children, Roald Dahl has written a classic heartwarming story of the bond between a newly-orphaned boy, who is strangely never given a name (I didn’t even realise that until I pored through the book again to find his name) and his Grandmama, from Norway. The fact that neither the boy nor Grandmama is named makes the story even more magical on hindsight, because this could be a story about just any boy and his grandmother, giving it an Everyman feel to this tale.

Grandmama’s country of origin is important because Grandmama has stories to tell about her girlhood experiences of witches growing up there, Norway being some sort of high witch grand central. The premise behind her stories is to distract him from his sadness of losing his parents. This is marvellously dealt with because Grandmama’s stories sound almost too fantastical to be true until they return to Bournemouth, England, to honour the boy’s father’s will. There, the boy finds out first hand that witches are real, and that they are just as Grandmama has described them, innocuously like any other woman on the street except for their gloves that hide their claws, bald heads under wigs, strange eyes, and toeless square feet hidden in pointy shoes. And they are all out to rid the world of pesky children, who smell like dog poo to them.

I can see where David Walliams got his inspiration from in his equally engaging and endearing “Gangsta Granny”, but Dahl still wins hands-down for integrating all the elements of horror, the macabre and magical, together with the bravery of the boy and the love between him and Grandmama, the latter who never ever flinches or talks down to the boy the way you expect an adult to when speaking to her grandson, even when he is literally turned into a mouse by the wicked Grand High Witch.

An altogether lovely story to savour, and I’m glad I found the time to read it for the first time in my mellow adulthood, and still be able to appreciate the magic of it.

5 people found this helpful

girlpower123

The Witches review

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 26, 2020

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I chose this rating because I like books about magic and adventure.
I liked the bit where the narrator was peeking through the screen in a hotel named Hotel Magnificent and saw the witches run their private RSPCC( Royal Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Children)meeting.
I disliked the bit when Bruno the mouse, the narrator's best friend, died of old age. It was devastating and almost impossible to believe! I didn't like that bit.

On the other hand, I love this book and would recommend that anyone who likes magic and adventure books to read it.

Amazon Customer

Faultless!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 7, 2014

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This book has been read and reviews thousands of times but how can you not love Roald Dahls book? This is fantastic and I won't go into it because there are very few people who don't know the story already but if you don't get too it!!!

The Paperback - It has seen many different covers and this one is just a good as any of the others, Quentin Blake still attracts children who seem to be able to reckoning his work anywhere. The print is of good side and well looks good on the shelf!

The Audio Book - Have listened to many different versions over the years the most recent being Miranda Richardson but no one did this as well as Simon Callow. With his you just loose yourself in the story and his take on the Witches song 'Oh where have all the children gone' is hilarious! The only downside it's abridged where the newer Miranda Richardson version is unabridged but I would still pick Callow's version ever time.

Kindle - The same as the paperback just quicker to download it if you children are demanding to read it as mine were. illustrations are just as great, a couple of typos but nothing the drastic. Maybe being an older book now it could be a little cheaper for the ebook but worth every penny none the less.

2 people found this helpful

Tim Roast

Classic Roald Dahl tale

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 24, 2014

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My wife remembers this book from her childhood as being her favourite book so she bought it for our 7-year-old daughter and we read it over several nights. My daughter also liked it and said it was "really fun".

The story starts with the unnamed boy narrator (at the beginning where the main characters are introduced he is simply called "boy") being told about witches by his grandmama. But "this is not a fairy-tale" she is telling. "This is about REAL WITCHES" and "real witches hate children." They disguise themselves as women and make children disappear.

The grandmother is funny because she is so un-grandma-like as she puffs away on her black cigar.

After that bout of story-telling the book sees the boy come into contact with real witches. Not just one witch though as he gets stuck in a room with about 200 of them. He has to hide but witches can smell children out, and do just that. This is where the real witching begins and the dastardly things they do comes to the fore.

All-in-all a classic Roald Dahl tale with the scary enemy potentially being anywhere, hence a child's imagination running wild.

3 people found this helpful

𝕬𝖒𝖆𝖟𝖔𝖓𝕮𝖚𝖘𝖙𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖗

My son didn't enjoy this book...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 9, 2022

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The Witches: Roald Dahl

My son is a huge fan of 'Roald Dahl' and thoroughly enjoys reading his books but he stopped reading this after the first few chapters, he said he didn't like the witch and the storyline as a whole, so he won't be recommending this book.

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Roald Dahl
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Roald Dahl
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