The Witches

By: Roald Dahl

Narrated by: Miranda Richardson

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci, and Chris Rock!

This is not a fairy tale. This is about real witches.

Grandmamma loves to tell about witches. Real witches are the most dangerous of all living creatures on Earth. There's nothing they hate so much as children, and they work all kinds of terrifying spells to get rid of them. Her grandson listens closely to Grandmamma's stories - but nothing can prepare him for the day he comes face-to-face with The Grand High Witch herself!

©2007 Roald Dahl (P)2007 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Dahl's stories work better in audio than in print.... The best of the lot, I think, is Miranda Richardson's The Witches. In her voice, the main witch, a kind of demented Lady Hitler with a hoarse Teutonic caw, rolls her rrr's like a machine gun. She gives a musical delivery that can turn the word 'cheese' into a five-syllable delicacy spilled in a descending glissando of notes. My middle-school children could hardly understand this character, partly because whenever she started speaking they screamed with laughter.... Richardson's élan and glee at The Witches, well, bewitched me." (Gregory Maguire, The New York Times Book Review)

“Roald Dahl sometimes shared a tonal kinship with Ogden Nash, and he could demonstrate a verbal inventiveness nearly Seussian...[His] stories work better in audio than in print.” (The New York Times)

poor character voice

How could the performance have been better?

The voice performed for the Grand High Witch is almost impossible to understand. It's too much. My kids and I were all confused as we listened on our commutes to school. Other than that, it was great.

THE WITCHES

LOVE THIS BOOK!!! I already read some of the other roald dahl books like Matilda, The Witches, And The BFG (the big friendly giant) and loved them all.

my kid loves it

I'm not as big a fan of this one as Matilda, but my kid loves it. Thumbs up.

Pretty good

Miranda Richardson's narration of this classic tale is mostly very good. Unfortunately, the sound effects mainly detract, and her representation of The Grand High Witch is painful; she yells and shrieks, and it is often difficult to even understand what she's saying.

Wow

Very imaginative, though a little frightening for some younger listeners (good for 7 and above).

Good but the voice

Great story but the voice of the Grand High Witch was so pitchy and loud it made me want to smash my iPad in spite of the screechy voice I loved this book and highly recommended it to people five and up

Even better than the movie I grew up being terrified of!

Glad I finally read the source material for the movie that scared me most as a kid!

Great story and performance, unnecessary sound effects

‘The Witch’ is a great Roald Dahl story. Dahl was never afraid to go dark for his children’s’ books and this novel’s premise — witches seeking to murder kids — was one of his darkest.

Miranda Richardson does a good job reading the story and acting out the different characters. There has been some criticism about how she reads for the Grand High Witch (she does a bit of screaming) and while I see where they’re coming from it wasn’t too bad. The character only appears in a few chapters regardless.

One issue I had was the use of sound effects throughout the story. They aren’t overwhelming but they are unnecessary and even distracting at times. The stock audio of a woman screaming is particularly annoying.

Caveats aside this is a great novel with a strong performance from the narrator.

The Grand High Witch's Voice Ruined It

UPDATE 10/22 Before getting the book, I checked out other reviews and saw some negative ones about the Grand High Witch's voice. After hearing the really nice sample that included sound effects, voice-changes, etc, I thought such a reviewer could just be overally sensitive. Boy, was I wrong... or was I??????

The book was rather pleasing and well done up until Chapter 7 where we hear the Grand High Witch. Then the chapterk took a tumble and it's a large one for me. I almost didn't want to listen to the rest of the audibook. That particular chapter was so bad that I could only grasp 30-40 percent of what the Grand High Witch was saying, My daughter, who this audiobook was for, could probably only pick out 5-10 percent....maybe.

After that terrible chapter, I was worried about how the rest of the book would be and I am happy to report that... IT GETS GOOD AGAIN! We could finish the rest of the book without a whiny witch and I have to say, I did like the job of the reader other than that hard-to-listen to chapter.

The Witches Road Trip Listen

This is a new story to me and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The narration was very enthusiastic and I enjoyed it for the most part with the exception of one part in the middle when she voiced the head witch. It became very loud, harsh and difficult to understand. I actually had to turn it off and listen to it in bits. After that section passed I once again enjoyed the book very much.