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The Witches is a book for children by Roald Dahl, first published in London in 1983 by Jonathan Cape and made into a movie in 1990. The book, like many of Dahl's works, is illustrated by Quentin Blake. Its content has made the book the frequent target of censors and it appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number twenty-seven. *
For the 1990 filmatization, see The Witches (film).
Plot
"One child a week equals fifty-two a year, squash them and squiggle them and make them disappear." That is the motto of all witches in Dahl's world. The book's witches are a well-connected organization with one goal: the elimination of as many children as possible, ideally all of them; children smell unpleasant to them, which is the only real motive given, apart from that they are just evil.
The Grand High Witch, angry at the witches' failure to remove all children, unveils her masterplan at the English witches' annual convention (cleverly disguised as a "Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children" convention): the English witches should take over England's confectionery retailers (using money given to them by the Grand High Witch) and give away chocolate that has been poisoned with a magic potion, which will turn the children into mice at exactly 9 a.m. the next day, when they are at school. The teachers, she hopes, will panic and kill the mice with mouse-traps, thereby doing the witches' work for them.
Unfortunately for the witches, an old witch expert and her grandson - the unnamed protagonist - are staying at the same hotel as the congregation of witches. By chance, the narrator is hiding in the convention hall at the time (where he is training his white mice) and, having received a thorough education about witches from his grandmother, he quickly realizes what is going on. The witches unveil their true selves, removing their wigs to reveal bald scalps, their gloves to reveal long, sharp claws, and grinning widely with their mouths full of blue saliva.
The Grand High Witch turns a fat child named Bruno Jenkins (lured to the convention hall by the promise of free chocolate) into a mouse as a demonstration of her plan; and the witches soon sense the narrator's presence - resulting in another mouse with a human mind.
The mouse-person manages to reach his grandmother's room safely (bringing Bruno along because he'd most likely get himself killed on his own), and they turn the witches' potion against them by adding it to the soup reserved for the witches themselves. The hotel staff panics, as the Grand High Witch predicted, and rid England of its witches. The two then come up with a plan to attack the witches' Norwegian headquarters.
Film version
Main article: The Witches (film)
The 1990 film softens and simplifies the tale somewhat, names the child 'Luke' and adds an epilogue in which he is restored to human form by the Grand High Witch's embittered personal assistant.
It stars Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch, Mai Zetterling as Helga (the Grandmother), Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Stringer (the hotel manager), Charlie Potter as Bruno Jenkins, and Jasen Fisher as Luke.
Editions
- ISBN 0374384576 (hardcover, 1983)
- ISBN 0224021656 (hardcover, 1983)
- ISBN 0374384584 (hardcover, 1983)
- ISBN 0435122932 (hardcover, 1985)
- ISBN 0140340203 (paperback, 1989)
- ISBN 0140317309 (paperback, 1989)
- ISBN 0606005404 (hardcover, 1989)
- ISBN 0141301104 (paperback, 1998)
- ISBN 0141311398 (paperback, 2001)
- ISBN 0754061914 (paperback, 2002)
- ISBN 0808574914 (library binding, 2002)
- ISBN 0224064703 (paperback, 2002)
"The Witches"