The Witches
Read to Succeed journals will serve as a running record of everything students do during the program. It should be stocked with lined paper and keep all activties and handout outs provided in the lessons.
Journals
"Things happened to me that will probably make you scream when you read about them. That can't be helped. The truth must be told."
The Witches tells the story of a brave young boy and his Norwegian grandmother as they battle against England's child-hating witches. It continues to feature in lists dedicated to the scariest children's books more than 30 years after it was first published. Especially around Halloween.
When he was a child himself, Roald Dahl used to spend every summer holiday with his family in Norway, where he was inspired by bedtime stories of witches and magic. He wrote about these holidays in Boy: Tales of Childhood. It is also said that the grandmother in The Witches was partially inspired by Roald's own mother. Roald dedicated the book to his wife, Liccy.
A film version of the story, starring Angelica Huston as the witches' leader The Grand High Witch, was released in 1990. The main difference between the film and the original story is the ending - in the book, there is no spell cast to change the boy's state back to what it was before the witches found him. The film also gives its central character the name Luke, whereas in the book we don't find out the name of either the boy who narrates the story or his grandmother.
In 1983, the year it was published, The Witches won three awards: The New York Times Outstanding Books Award, The Federation of Children's Book Groups Award and The Whitbread Award.
About Roald Dahl's The Witches
Before Reading
-
Check out this digitized version of the story. A great resource if you have a smartboard/digital projector, want to g
ive your kids "homework" without risking loosing the books, or give kids an opportunity to annotate what they read!
A Note About Witches
Chapter 1
My Grandmother
Chapter 2
How to Recognize a Witch
Chapter 3
The Grand High Witch
Chapter 4
Summer Holidays
Chapter 5
The Meeting
Chapter 6
Frizzled Like a Fritter
Chapter 7
Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker
Chapter 8
The Recipe
Chapter 9
Bruno Jenkins Disappears
Chapter 10
The Ancient Ones
Chapter 11
Metamorphosis
Chapter 12
Bruno
Chapter 13
Hello Grandmamma
Chapter 14
The Mouse-Burglar
Chapter 15
Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins Meet Bruno
Chapter 16
The Plan
Chapter 17
In the Kitchen
Chapter 18
Mr. Jenkins and His Son
Chapter 19
The Triumph
Chapter 20
The Heart of a Mouse
Chapter 21
Closing Activities
It's off to Work We Go!
Chapter 22