The Witches
By: Roald Dahl
My Rating: Five out of Five Stars
Best for: Everyone

The last time I read The Witches I was 10 and in the 4th grade. That I still remember it 30 years later is as much a testament to the book as it is to my 4th grade teacher who read it to me.

Now I’m the dad, and it’s my turn to screech out The Grand High Witch’s lines in all their slavic-accented glory to my kids. I had as much fun reading The Witches as they did!

You haven’t read The Witches? Grab a copy, find a kid, and fix that now…there’s nothing better than watching their faces when they hear you read (in your best r-rolling, slavic-accented, screechy-scream) things like:

“‘I am having my breakfast this morning,’ cried The Grand High Witch, ‘and vot am I seeing? I am seeing a rrreevolting sight! I am seeing hundreds, I am seeing thousands of rrotten rrreepulsive little children playing on the sand! Vye have you not rrrubbed them all out, these filthy smelly children?’

“With each word she spoke, flicks of pale-blue phlegm shot from her mouth like bullets.

“‘We will do better,’ murmured the audience. ‘We will to much better.’

“‘Better is no good either!’ shrieked The Grand High Witch. ‘I demand maximum rrreesults! So here are my orders! My orders are that every single child in this country shall be rrrubbed out, sqvashed, sqvirted, sqvittered, and frrrittered before i come here again in vun year’s time! Do I make myself clear?’”

God bless Roald Dahl.

Required reading for all audiences who like to have fun. Boring families are welcome to skip.

Parents might want to know there is quite a lot of Grammama smoking a cigar and talk about witches being wicked to children because they smell like dogs’ droppings.

The children…not the witches.

Happy reading!

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The Witches by Roald Dahl