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=The Witches=

Author: Roald Dahl Illustrated By Quentin Blake Publisher: Puffin Books Place of Publication: New York, New York Copyright Date: 1983 Genre: Fantasy/ Adventure

This Book is called __The Witches__, it was written by Roald Dahl and Illustrated by Quentin Blake. Out of my 12 books by Roald Dahl, 10 were worked on by this team. They are really good at making funny fantasy stories together. They are good pictures because they go really well with the story. I liked this book because Roald Dahl is one of my favorite authors. It is very good light reading. I read this book twice in a row! It is about an English boy whose parents get killed in a car crash and he goes to live with his grandmother in Norway. She teaches him all about witches – like how to identify them. He needs to find out how to deal with them because they're planning on turning all the children in the world into mice!

The story takes place in Norway and England and the main characters are the Boy (the narrator), The Grandmother (a nice, plump, wise, old Norwegian woman who takes care of the Boy), And the Witches of Norway and England. The witches are evil, ugly, mean and disgusting with a horrible plan.

In the beginning, when the boy's parents were killed in the car accident and he went to his grandmothers house, she taught him all about how to recognize witches because they are really, really dangerous.

These are the grandmother's signs to recognize a witch. A witch is always a woman, She looks normal except for these things: She wears an itchy wig because she has a bald spotty head, (and so often scratches her head) She has blue spit. She has a metallic voice. She has huge nostrils for smelling children (which she hates)! She always wears gloves to hide her claw-like fingers. She smiles up and down instead of side to side. She has square feet with NO toes. So she wears tiny, pointy shoes to hide her blocklike feet. Her pupils change color and if you look into them, you'll see dancing fire and ice.

Nearing the end of the school year, the boy and his grandmother started to make plans for the summer but when it was three weeks until vacation, she got sick with Pneumonia. The doctor said they couldn't go to the spot in Norway she'd promised the boy, but they should go to this nice hotel in England for the summer. So they went there and as a present she got him two white mice, to make up for not being able to go fishing and eat mussels on vacation. He started to train them. The day after he got them, the hotel manager got mad because hotels aren't supposed to have mice. The grandmother stood up for the boy, so that he could keep the mice. The manager said said the boy could only keep them if they were in their cage, in his room, or else the mice would be drowned in a bucket of water. He wanted to go somewhere where nobody was, so that he could train his two white mice. But every room was occupied by someone, except one huge room filled with lots of chairs. Right out side the door it said: “RSPCC meeting. Strictly private. This room reserved for a royal society for the prevention of cruelty to children.” (really big lie.) But it was still empty. So he went in and hid behind a screen where he began training his mice. Then he heard voices outside, and those were the witches, but he didn't know that they were witches, but they were. About a hundred women came in, and started their meeting. Then, he looked between the crack in the screen and he was looking around at the women when he noticed they were all scratching their heads. He stared to get a little nervous. They he looked around again and every single one of them was wearing gloves. He knew they were witches, and now he was scared, but the door was locked and he had to hope none of them smelled him. The Grand High Witch was there, talking about a new way to kill the children. It was Formula 86 - Delayed Action Mouse Maker, a liquid, one bottle of which would turn 200 children into mice. At the end of the meeting, when they were just about to leave, one of the witches smelled him. They cornered him and the Grand High Witch poured all the contents of the bottle of Formula 86 into his mouth so he would turn into a mouse right away. Turning into a mouse was painful.

He ran all the way to his grandmother's room. Then he told her all about what he had heard. She nearly fainted but he had a brilliant idea. He would pour some mouse maker formula into all the witches dinner that night. They lived in room 554, the Grand High witch had said that her room was 454. So he knew that right under them was her room. Then, the grandmother lowered him down, from the balcony in her knitting onto the balcony of the Grand High witch. He jumped out and started looking for the Formula 86. He slid under the bottom of the closet to look there and he found a bottle. Old witches started coming in, so he ran out the door with the bottle, unnoticed because mice are fast runners. When he got back to his room, they came up with a plan to get the formula into the witches food to defeat them. His grandmother suggested using his tail to swing and jump and fly through the kitchen and pour the Action Delayed Mouse Maker into their soup.

He hid in the grandmother's bag and she put him down on the floor where she was eating dinner so he could get to the kitchen. So he started using his tail to swing and jump through the kitchen and pour the Action Delayed Mouse Maker into their first course, soup. And he did, except sadly, he got the tip of his tail cut off by one of the cooks, who attacked him when he was seen while he was escaping. He ran back to his grandmother's table where she bandaged him and they watched and saw that at the end of dinner, all the witches in England started turning into mice. This made them really happy. They had saved all the children of England from this horrible fate.

The next day they got in a taxi to go home. The grandmother called the police, saying that she was the chief of police and asked for the passport and address and information of the person who was living in room 454 at their hotel. She figured out that the Grand High Witch had lived in a castle in Norway with lots of other witches. The mouse and his grandmother would make their own Mouse Maker formula (because he was listening at the meeting when the Grand High Witch told the others how to make the formula). And he would sneak in and feed the witches the formula and then bring in a lot of cats so then there would be no more witches.

I think the **Author's purpose** in this story is to tell a story about a little boy, his grandmother and witches. be clever fight against evil. The boy uses his wits and his grandmother's wisdom to defeat the evil witches. I think this book is fanciful because a good little boy and his grandmother against some evil witches. And it goes like a fairy tale, because the evil witch turns the good little boy into a mouse but he conquers her anyway!

Connections:
I think the connections between this and the real world are that there are real forces of good and evil. An example of good versus evil would be in world war II, when lots of countries fought to defeat the Nazis. Some other connections are that I have a grandmother like the boy's grandmother in the book. She is wise. She know alot about birds and animals. She teaches children about wild animals and plants. I have learned from her, so that I could even teach my parents useful stuff. In real life, "witches" are regular people that have a belief or religion called __Wicca.__ But people think, because of stories, that witches are bad or evil. But they're not. I was a witch for Halloween, but if I knew that 85 witches like the ones in this story were in the room, I would faint.

Paul Revere Bookshare
And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?

The book And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? is a good book written by Jean Fritz and Illustrated by Margot Tomes. It is about Paul Revere, the Boston Tea Party and the Revolutionary War.

In the beginning, the town of Boston counted 13,000 people, 42 streets, 36 lanes, 22 alleys, 1000 brick houses, 2000 wooden houses, 12 churches, 4 schools, 118 horses, and so many dogs they couldn’t count. Then Paul Revere was born in 1735. When Paul grew up to be fifteen years old, his father died. After his father died he became the leader of the family silversmith business. He made many silver things including jewelry, buttons, medals, household items and shoe buckles. To make more money, he took the job of ringing the church bells 3 times a day and on special occasions.

In 1756, Paul turned 21 years old, but as it happened, a war was near by. French Solders along with the Indians were attacking the borders of the colonies. He went off to defend Fort William Henry, but there were no French or Indians there to fight, just flies. After the summer, they were sent home. He got married to Sarah Orne and they had lots of children. Six, and two babies who died young. Then Sarah died and Paul married Rachel Walker. They had lots of children too. Five, and three who died young.

In 1773, The English were putting a lot of taxes on printed matter, tea, glass, ink, and paper but England would not give up the tax on tea. So Paul and the Sons of Liberty, pretending to be Indians, climbed onto the ships carrying boxes and boxes of tea. They broke open the chests of tea (10,000 pounds of it) and dumped it into Boston Harbor. This was called the "Boston Tea Party". Then Paul was picked to ride his horse to New York and Philadelphia - 63 miles a day- to spread the news. He did it and was back in Boston on the eleventh day, way before anyone expected. During his big ride, English officers captured him, but there was a gunshot, they panicked and let the horses free, then the prisoners, so he walked to Lexington. Paul got in a carriage with John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and John Lowell. They drove about two miles then John and Paul got out of the carriage and walked back to Lexington because there was a trunk of important papers that they needed and they didn't want the English to find them. There were 50-60 armed men preparing to stand against the English. There was a fight. John and Paul carried the trunk through the battlefield to safety. After that, he kept busy. He rode Express for the Committee of Safety, he printed paper money, and he was put in command of the Fort at Castle Island.

Paul Revere was 75 and still always busy. He made sleigh bells, hammers, church bells, etc. Paul is old and no one bothers to count the streets and alleys, horses or houses because the 33,787 people of Boston are too busy making the town bigger and bigger.

I think that the **author's purpose** is to help children learn the history of Paul Revere by making the book interesting, not boring like a textbook. She uses fun facts to educate you, and using pictures that show what's happening and making it exciting by telling it like it's really happening. If you were writing a report about Paul Revere, this would be a good book because you can find lots of fun facts, and can use her good descriptions of Paul Revere's life.

Some **connections** between this book about Paul Revere and my life are that we are having a war today in Iraq and they were having a War in the fight for being the United States. I have an aunt and uncle living in Boston. We both had pets- he had a dog, I had a cat and a fish. He swatted flies at lake fort Henry, I swatted flies when a mouse died in the wall behind the stove in my kitchen. He whittled hippopotamus teeth, I whittled sticks. I learned to ride a horse at camp. He rode his horse from Boston to New York and Philadelphia and back in eleven days. I think it would take me a year and I would lose my way 100 times.