Book Review: The Witches by Roald Dahl
image from Amazon
The book was written by the great Roald Dahl who wrote other classics such as Matilda, BFG, Fantastic Mr. Fox. Unlike JK Rowling's Dumbledore, witches in Dahl's world are evil and cruel. They hate children and make it their lifelong mission to eradicate them. Too scary for a children's book if you ask me and that's why it was criticised when it came out.
The story is about an orphan boy who lives with his grandma who warned him that witches are real and disguise as real people to lure children. One day, the boy sees a gathering of witches in a hotel. They are planning to turn children into mice where they will be killed by their unsuspecting parents. He was discovered and turned into a mouse himself. What follows was his adventure to stop the witches from their evil plan.
The ending was bitter sweet since
!the boy can no longer be turned back to human. He with his grandma vowed to hunt other witches.
In my opinion, for a children's book the story is really dark and scary.
! [Hidden Spoiler Text] This is the spoiler content.
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The boy's fate at the end is tragic as he can no longer be turned back and a mouse's life is shorter than a human's. He can only comfort himself with his mission to hunt witches.
The author's choice to expose young readers to such cruelty that can happen to them made the book scary and controversial. I for one preferred the movie adaptation ending which had a more positive vibe.
This is a really good book 💓
I can definitely see why it was a controversial book, judging from what you said. The story is indeed very sad and tragic for children because although it could be said that the boy became a hero hunting witches to save other kids, that was a huge and terrifying sacrifice he did.
But I think that for an adult it seems like a sort of creepy but light and entertaining story.
Nice post :)
I remembered reading this book way back my junior highschool years, and I really got scared while reading this. The way the book portrayed the witches was really creepy, but nonetheless the story was entertaining.