The Witches

I am currently finishing up The Witches by Roald Dahl.

I was recently told by a teacher that the "children's stories" I write are very, very creative - but also very disturbing and that the day I become a published children's author is the day he wonders what went wrong with the world. Thanks!

However, The Witches is a disturbing story of which is based around pure creativity that a child seeks and enjoys. Children don't always like books with upstanding morals about puppies getting caught in sewage drains and being saved by a hunky, well-mannered firefighters. Children want stories that are crazy, out of this world, and something that will make them giggle and be engrossed in the world of words at the same time. A good children's book is one that can be read aloud by an enthusiastic parent who can do voices for characters to get the child to believe that such a crazy world is real. The perfect bedtime story. Such stories get children to later in life read by themselves.

The Witches is a story that I would highly recommend based on the above statements about children's books. The story is about a young child and his grandmother - who informs the boy that witches exist everywhere throughout the world in large numbers. These witches look like real people on the outside - however, they always wear gloves due to clawed hands, scratch their heads due to being bald and having to wear a wig, fitting their wide toe-less feet, have blue saliva, and many other hidden, horrible things. These witches abhor children and seek to demolish them at all costs. To witches, children smell like "dog's drrrroooopppppppingggggs."

The boy is terrified at what he hears about witches and fears for his own life, as a child, since these seemingly ladylike women seek to murder him. One can see why this book was under scrutiny by censors! The story revolves around the boy and his grandmother arriving at a hotel in England. The boy enters a large room in the hotel said to be hosting the "Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children." However, as the ladies start entering the room...it turns out that the two hundred women who have just entered the room are actually all witches! And that he is at the very secret annual meeting of every witch in England - of which his grandmother has been trying to discover the location of her whole life as a sort of "witchhunter."

The Grand High Witch is concocting a plan to destroy all of the children in one fell swoop!!

Who will stop them?

A World Inside the Pages

How often do we wish that, beyond the hardcover, the words upon the pages we delve into were real? Vivid they may be, but one cannot help feel sad at the inability to escape into a perfect world.

Yesterday was a snow day for my school, and today as well due to this monstrosity of a blizzard! Yesterday I managed to finish four children's chapter books - including the Pippi Longstocking series. I remember reading the books as a young elementary school gal (in between getting in trouble and writing my wrongs on a paper over and over at "detention" during recess) and attending the play, however the world of Pippi Longstocking and her beloved home Villa Villekulla never quite sank in. After reading it now, as a senior in high school, Pippi's world is one I long quite strongly for. Pippi is the embodiment of what every child and teenager wishes to be - one free. A ridiculous life is led by Pippi, who lives in a large home all by her lonesome self with a monkey, a horse, and a big chest of gold coins pillaged from her sea travels. Devoid of manners, Pippi is unconcerned about what she says or who she offends. Pippi is Pippi - no one can change her, talk down to her - lest they be crushed by her incredible strength (tossing grown men into the air as punishment with one hand!)

As a child I often tried to have my own adventures. I attempted to live a life parallel to that of Pippi Longstocking. Alone time in my backyard was enjoyed most of all...I explored, befriended fireflies, found a pet rock whom I named Ralph. He became the best secret keeper that I knew. My favorite place in the whole world was in my backyard. There is a hollow bush and tree connected which I would crawl through to my secret underworld. Here, no one could find me. Here, the world was skewed towards my active imagination. I set up a chair and constructed a fake telescope. Aimed creepily towards my neighbors yard, I would pretend I was a spy in a submarine, as the bushes left me completely enclosed. Just as Pippi sailed the seas, I was discovering underwater worlds and creatures. My dogs became horses, and I was their jubilant circus leader riding and parading them around the yard (German Shepherds were certainly capable of carrying me around the yard.) My backyard became my beacon of peace. My paradise. My forever morphing stage.

My whole life I have longed for the lives of others - within books, on television shows, even others whom had less parental control than I. Now, looking back, I would want no other life than that of one where I was contained in my backyard..well, of course I was allowed in the house sometimes, too ;) Not only children need imagination to bud into creative, successful people. Imagination is vital to enjoying life. For all of us need an escape. When that escape is not monetary feasible...simply escape into the mind. A whole world awaits.