Review of Roald Dahls The Witches

Review of Roald Dahls The Witches

I have red the children’s book “The Witches” by Roald Dahl. It was first published the year 1983 in London.

This book is about a brave eight year old boy, which parents recently died in a car crash, and now he’s living with his grandmother. The boy and his parents lived in England and the grandmother in Norway. The parents last wish was that the boy could grow up in England, so the grandmother moved to there old house to take care of the boy. The grandmother told the boy alot of stories, and there was one he liked more then the others, the one about the witches. She tells him about how the witches lives among us and that they hate children. She also describes how kids she known have been turned into strange things by witches and that the witches looks like any kind lady you can meet in the neighbourhood. These stories is the beginning of there dangerus advetures saving the children of England and hunting witches all over the world.

They don’t say which year the book takes place but I can guess that it’s around the time Dahl wrote it, because of the car accident. The boy travells between England and Norway a couple of times but ends up in Norway with his grandma. Roald Dahl was born in Cardiff, Wales but he also had Norwegian family background. When the author reflects in the story like this the book seems to get more real and a real person. He doesn’t describe the surroundings that much, which I would have liked. The story takes place some really beautiful places, and I think they should have been showed. I guess children wouldn’t think about it like me, but I do miss it.

The book doesn’t describe the characters very much, which leaves alot for the imagination. I do think it’s important in a children’s book that they get to find there own picture and the author really did leave it open for the readers. I did think it was alittle irritating that I didn’t even get a name of the boy and grandmother, but I guess it wouldn’t have made a big difference. He did describe the witches though, whish was necessary because of the speciall look. If he wouldn’t have described it like he did many would probably have got an undesirable picture of them. I would have thought that they looked like witches in outher storries, with ugly faces, warts and a pointy hat. This would have changed the whole story. In this book there were pictures that showed how they looked, but if a teacher was reading this for her class, the kids have to be able to understand without seeing the images.

The boy is shown as an ordinary boy with a life like any other boy could have, and that makes it possible for boys, but ofcource also girls, in that age to really take this book seriously and relate to him, “It happened to him, it could happen to me” kind of thoughts. I can’t say that I felt that way, but maybe that’s good. This book is obviously made for an outher age then mine, but that dosen’t say that someone my age can’t enjoy it. I do think I realted to, but not in the same way. I imagened my self when I was younger and I really could see my self as this adveturous kid hunting witches.

My first picture of the grandmother was a crazy woman who wouldn’t let go of her stories. That she wanted them to be true and therefore forced them on her grandson, but when I found out more, I started to really like her. She is an old woman who wants to live and doesn’t let her age be in the way, which I addmire. I hope I will be like that when I’m that old.

I would say that Roald Dahl didn’t think the looks (exept for the witches) was that important, but something that he really did describe was feelings and experiences that the characters had during the story. This actually made me feel like I was there and felt just what the person in the book did, but I can imagen that a kid would have felt this much more then I did when I red it.

In the way he was writing you could see that the book was made for kids, but I do think that he used alot of difficult words and exprecions. Even though the book was written around 30 years ago I didn’t think the language would be that diffrent. The reason could also be that I haven’t red this kind of children’s book before, and that I have grown up with swedish books. I do have a hard time figuering out if there is a ...