Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. (Exodus 22:17) King James Version. Depending on the translation you select, you may substitute wizard or sorceress for witch, but the message is consistent. All witches must die! Dahl clearly takes this to heart in this selection from the top 100 list of “banned” books.
The list is comprised of the books most commonly protested in American public school and public community libraries. Witches is #22 on the list. I’m surprised it’s not higher. There’s something in this book to offend nearly anyone who might want to ban a book. I think he did that on purpose
First:
There are witches -- lots of witches! Most of the story takes place in England and according to the author, there are over 100 witches in England. Furthermore:
REAL WITCHES dress in ordinarily clothes and look very much like ordinary women. They live in ordinary houses and they work in ORDINARY JOBS.
The witches use magic and spells in the course of their everyday lives. If Dahl set out to offend those who object to the use of witchcraft or the occult, he doubtless succeeded.
Second:
The second group likely to be offended is those who consider themselves witches or who are concerned about being mistaken for witches. Why? Dahl describes his witches as evil, cunning types who live to destroy children -- hardly a kind representation, is it? Then he says:
Oh if only there were a way of telling for sure whether a woman was a witch or not, then we could round them all up and put them in the meat grinder.
Dahl clearly takes the initial paragraph's admonition from scripture to heart, doesn't he?
Third:
After making it quite clear that witches are vile creatures, and should be destroyed, Dahl goes on to offend feminists with the following:
A witch is always a woman. I do not wish to speak badly about women. Most women are lovely. But the fact remains that all witches are women.
Considering how difficult it is to tell a witch from the kind lady down the street, perhaps the members of Concerned Women for America should be offended by that too.
Fourth
This book should be banned for violence! There is violence against children, animals, and witches. There are whole scenes of mice being assaulted with meat cleavers and frying pans. This should have a great many people up in arms!
Fifth
Alert the folks at PETA, because there is gross exploitation of animals, too! Not only do the witches use an assortment of animal parts in their concoctions, but the main character has a pair of companion animal mice. He coerces them to perform tricks in the hope that he will one day be able to display them in a mouse circus. Talk about exploitation!
Sixth:
The folks at Child Protective Services must be livid! The little protagonist of this story is encouraged to smoke, permitted to wander about unsupervised, sent into hazardous places by his grandmother, and strongly discouraged from bathing with the excuse that witches hate the smell (stink waves) of clean children.
When you haven’t washed for a week, and you skin is all covered over with dirt, then quite obviously the stink-waves cannot come oozing nearly so strongly.
The soap and shampoo manufacturers are doubtless supporting CPS in their objections to this book.
In summation
This book doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves. It should be far higher on the list of banned books than it is. Perhaps it misses a higher ranking because the violence isn’t sufficiently graphic and the author neglects to use objectionable language or eroticism anywhere in this book. Perhaps it is sympathy for the little boy who loses his parents in an automobile accident, then goes through many trials in a heroic attempt to defend the children of England against the witches.
Perhaps it is simply that this book is far too funny to ban. Dahl’s crisp humor and storytelling skills, along with Quentin Blake’s illustrations combine to make one of the more entertaining books I’ve read recently.
This is not a book I would read to my 5 year old. He takes things too literally and would be disturbed by the death of the protagonist’s parents, the illness of his grandmother, and the near-misses he experiences in trying to defeat the witches. It’s just too intense for him right now. That will not always be the case. I fully intend to read it to him in a year or so when he is better able to deal with abstractions.
I also wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone who had surgery so recently that it still hurts to laugh. It’s just too funny - not snickering at things funny, but loud belly laughs. Consider yourself warned.
This is just one selection in the banned book write-off. We are celebrating the American Librarian Association’s Banned Book Week by reviewing books from the ALA’s top 100 list of books people have tried to ban in the last 10 years. There are many other lists of books that have been banned, burned, or met with objections. The reasons vary from book to book and place to place. Some of the greatest literature in the English language has made it onto those lists.
I wrote this review with tongue in cheek, but censorship is a serious issue. School libraries do have to make sure that their offerings are age-appropriate, and their limited budgets won’t generally allow for a wide selection. However, a public library in a large metropolitan area should offer many books not suitable for your children to read. If they do not, they cannot meet the needs of their adult patrons. It is up to parents to determine what is suitable for their own children. Adults should be able to decide for themselves.
Visit my profile page for a clickable listing of the authors participating in this write-off, or see the list below
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