In January, I read one of my favorite books called, The Witches by Roald Dahl. The book is about a young boy named Charlie Hansen who is now an orphanage since his parents died in a car accident. He started living with his sick grandmother. His grandmother warns him about real life witches and teaches him how to spot one. When Charlie encounters a witch for the first time, he is absolutely terrified. Soon, Charlie and his grandma plan to go on a vacation to Norway but the flight gets cancelled due to Charlie’s grandma being too weak to travel that far. Instead they go to a hotel on the south coast of England. Horrible events happen at that hotel. Charlie discovers hundreds of witch’s in a meeting . The witches feed a young boy, named Bruno, chocolate that they casted a spell on to make the poor boy turn into a mouse. Unfortunately, the witches spot Bruno hiding and also turn him into a mouse. Charlie and Bruno go to find Charlie’s grandmother and they all try to find a way to return to their human form and get rid of all the witches.
What I love about this book is how Roald Dahl uses descriptive words so that the reader feels the pain Charlie goes through. For example, on page 114 it says, “Oh, the pain and the fire! It felt as through a kettleful of boiling water had been poured into my mouth. My throat was going up in flames! Then very quickly the frightful burning searing scorching feeling started spreading down into my chest and into my tummy and on into my arms and legs and all over my body!” In this moment, Charlie was getting transformed into a mouse which was extremely scary and painful for Charlie. This makes the reader realize how cruel the witches could be.
My favorite character is Charlie’s grandmother, Agatha. Agatha is the type of person that’s always there whenever you need her help. For instance on page 127 after Charlie and Bruno immediately came to Agatha for help, she says, “‘Of course I’ll look after you…’” Without hesitation, Agatha lets the boys know they are safe. She asks them questions about everything that happened to know exactly what had occurred.
My favorite quote from the book is on page ten where it says , “ She might even-and this will make you jump- she might even be your lovely school-teacher who is reading these words to you at this very moment,” I remember my fourth grader teacher reading this book out loud to the class and thinking she was witch. I could never see her the same again. This quote also makes me laugh and realize that witches can come in any form of women. Teachers, doctors, employees at stores or just ladies walking down the street.
