The Witches

Report Written By: Makayla Dempsey

The book that I read is called The Witches.  Roald Dahl is the author of this book.  The story was published by FSG Kids Books and text copyright in the year 1983.  The illustrations are by Quentin Blake.

The story The Witches is about a boy and his grandma from Norway, and how they came across real witches.  The grandma knew a lot about witches because she had seen them before.  She would tell her grandson everything she knew about them.  These witches looked like normal people, so you would not know you were looking at a witch, even if it was your teacher.  The witches were in disguise.  They wore wigs because they were bald, and they always wore gloves to hide their claws that they had instead of fingernails.  A witch would walk a little weird because their feet were big, rectangular and toeless feet, and they always hurt.  If you looked really close at a witch, you would see that they have slue spit, and their eyes are usually like fire or ice color.  If a witch sees you, you will be taken away immediately or worse…turned into something because…WITCHES HATE CHILDREN!

There was a witch that ruled all witches in the world.  She was called the Grand High Witch.  The Grand High Witch created something called “Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse Maker’.  A drop of this formula was meant to be put into candy and given to children.  If a child would eat this candy, the next day at 9:00a.m. they would quickly turn into a mouse.  Every year all of the witches would come together and have a great big meeting.  This particular year the meeting was held in a ballroom at a hotel in England.  This hotel was also where the boy and his grandma were staying for the whole summer.  The boy had pet mice with him at the hotel.  He took his mice one day into the ballroom at the hotel to teach them how to do tricks, and it was the same ballroom where the witches were having their meeting.  The boy heard everything until he was caught by the witches.  He was given more than a drop of the formula by the Grand High Witch and he turned into a mouse.  It happened so quickly because they gave him so much of the formula.  Still a mouse, the boy went back to his grandma to tell her what had happened.  She went back with him to the witches’ meeting to steal a bottle of the “Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse Maker’.  When it was lunchtime, the boy put the Formula into the witches’ soup, and all the witches tuned into mice.  Now all the witches were mice, they were powerless, and the boy and his grandma saved the world.  The boy was still a mouse but he was happy as long as he was still safe with his grandma.

I recommend this book to people my age because it was very interesting and exciting.  The part I liked the best were the descriptions of the witches and how they disguised themselves.