[FUN WITH READING 2018-20201B] The Witches

20201伍珮齊 (WU, PEI-CHI)

[BOOK PROFILE]

TITLE OF THE BOOK: The Witches

NAME OF THE AUTHOR: Roald Dahl

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 1983

ISBN: 978-0-141-34994-7

The Witches

The boy was turned into a mouse by The Grand High Witch because he knew everything about Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker. He and his grandma made an excellent plan to deal with the witches. The boy’s grandma is a retired witchophile who studied witches and knew a lot about them. She always told her grandson how to recognize a witch. First, witches had thin curvy claws, so they wore the gloves to hide them. Second, they were all bald as a boiled egg, so they wore wigs. And wearing wigs did cause a rather serious problem for them. They had to put them straight on to their naked scalp. It will be very rough and scratchy, and the witches called it wig-rash. Third, nose-holes. They had a slightly larger nose-holes than ordinary people. Their special nose-holes were for smelling out a child from far away. And that was why his grandma told him to have a bath once a month. Forth, witches never had toes. They just had feet, so they had the most awful job to squeeze their feet into those neat little pointed shoes. Last, their spit was blue as ink, so they even used it to write. His grandma had a pneumonia because she used to smoke cigars. And they decided to go to Hotel Magnificent which was a nice place for them to rest. One day in the hotel, the boy came to “The Ballroom”, where RSPCC Meeting was held. He was fascinated by these hair –scratching ladies first. Then he found out it was Annual Meeting for witches. Sadly, he was turned into a mouse by using Mouse-Maker. Therefore he ran to his own room to tell his grandma everything. Then they decided to put some drops of Mouse-Maker in witches’ supper. They did it successfully but the boy was still a mouse.

The fiction made me nervous. I really wanted to live in that fiction’s world because his grandma said it was a bad habit for children to take a bath. I can’t agree it more. And on Page 57, it said, ” It is always funny when you catch someone doing something coarse and she thinks no one is looking. Nose-picking, for example, or scratching her bottom.” That was totally what I thought. Some of my classmates often did those things. It was really disgusting but funny. And in the fiction, the author wanted to express that The Grand High Witch had trouble pronouncing the letter w and the letter r, so he wrote the word she said in a different way. I thought the author made a mistake first, but after I knew the reason, I still had trouble reading it. Also, “She does it in order to keep the rest of them on their toes.” “But they don’t have any toes, Grandma.” The sentences really gave me a knowing smile.