Witches in Children's Lit: Part 2
This week, I took a different approach from my previous blog post. I visited the TCU library's juvenile section to explore the witchy books they had on their shelves. To my surprise, I found 143 children's books that dealt with witches, which seemed like a lot for our small children's department. After browsing a few pages of results, I settled on checking out a book called "Excuse me... Are you a Witch?"
"Excuse me... Are you a Witch?" is a story about a black cat named Herbert who is lonely and has very few friends. One day, while at the public library, Herbert finds an "Encyclopedia of Witches" and learns that witches love to have black cats as pets.
He then sets out to find a witch. However, when he asks people in town if they are witches, they react negatively. The townspeople either run away because they believe black cats bring bad luck, laugh at him, or scold him for being rude for wrongly assuming they were witches.
Eventually, Herbert makes his way back to the library where he runs into a witchy class and a witchy teacher that brings him back to witch school with them. The little witch students are very loving towards Herbert and even fight over who gets to ride with him on their broomstick.
This picture book features many of the witch stereotypes we have discussed in class including the stereotypical witch image. Herbert is looking for the "signs" of a witch including a pointy black hat, cauldron, and broomstick. The book also features simplistic representations of "Othering", perfect for a child to understand. The black cat is feared by one of the townspeople because she believes he is "bad luck" and it shows how this makes Herbert sad through his facial expression in the illustrations. The witches are also shown as an "Other" alongside Herbert because one woman is incredibly insulted that Herbert would insinuate she was a witch. She even tells him to never come back, showing how upset the comment made her.
When researching this book I found many read-aloud videos on YouTube and other websites demonstrating its popularity for children, especially around Halloween time. One of my distinct memories from elementary school was when we would read all kinds of books about witches, mummies, and ghosts during October. It seems this book is frequently used that way as well. The website Teacher's Pay Teachers is a service for teachers to sell their worksheets and lesson plans to other teachers. I looked up "Excuse me, Are you a Witch?" and found a comprehension worksheet a teacher was selling so classes could engage even deeper with the contents of the book. Alongside this activity, I found many other witchy lesson plans including counting broomstick worksheets and spotting the difference between two witch images. Witches are in some ways ingrained into our schooling because of the frequency of books like "Excuse me...Are you a Witch?" read in school and other witchy activities conducted during the Halloween season.
Thanks for diving deeper into children's books featuring witches. Great blog post. I am also really surprised that you found 143 titles. I suspect that there are even more titles around. the book you chose actually sounds delightful to me, since the book I chose is The Witch's Cat and also a cat story.though my story is far different. What surprises me is that there never is any indication or message stating that witches and witchcraft are imaginative constructs and not to be believed. I think children's books with witches opens up a whole new area to explore. Thanks for introducing me to the area.
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