The Witches

I know that I've already blogged about a Roald Dahl book but he has become the favorite author of my classroom this year and we had to read another!  During the month of October, I was looking for a fun Halloween read aloud.  I remembered the book The Witches from my childhood and decided I just had to read it!

This book is quite long and we just finished it last week.  However, it was so interesting and fun that the students did not mind reading a book about witches into November.  It is about a boy whose parents pass away.  He then goes to live with his grandmother and she teaches him all that she knows about witches.  He thinks that she is telling stories until he meets one himself.  He escapes unharmed but when they go on vacation, he does not end up so lucky.  He happens upon a meeting of all of the witches in England and will never be the same!

There are so many skills that would connect to this book.  First, this is a great book to discuss character traits again, like with Beezus and Ramona.  There are clear villains and heroes that would be easy for your students to identify.  In the resources section below there is a link to a list of character traits.  Next, I used this book to discuss problem and solution.  The boy has a tough problem and goes through sequential steps to solve it.  Finally, I used this book for point of view.  This book was written in first person point of view.  It is told from the boy's perspective and we never even find out his name.  I found it strange that my students kept saying "she" or "her" when talking about the character and I realized that they though it was a girl because a female was reading it!  Talking about point of view helped to clear up this confusion.

There are a few warnings about this book before you choose to read it.  First, the boy's parents do die in the book, not before, in a car crash.  If you have a student who has lost his or her parent(s), I would suggest reading the book before you start to see if it would be appropriate.  Also, Roald Dahl does not always use school appropriate language, such as "heck".  I found myself skipping or substituting words that I preferred not to repeat to my students.  Having said that, my students enjoyed this book so much that they were greatly disappointed that there was not a sequel.  Their favorite part was when the Grand High Witch spoke because she has an accent.  They loved hearing me act it out.  I would highly recommend this book for third through fifth grade teachers.

Extra Resources:

Check out the movie The Witches.  You could use it to teach about compare and contrast.  Use a Venn Diagram.

Character Traits List: http://cte.jhu.edu/techacademy/web/2000/kochan/charactertraits.html

The Official Roald Dahl Website: information about his books, his life, games, etc. http://www.roalddahl.com/

Writing Ideas: http://www.roalddahlfans.com/teachers/witc.php