Great Reads for Girls

An Evening with the Witches

Tammra, Taylor and Yara

It was a spooky night indeed when Great Reads for Girls met to discuss The Witches by Roald Dahl.  Young girls were left to wonder if there were REAL WITCHES there amongst them. REAL WITCHES are bald so they wear wigs.  They wear pointy shoes to hide their square feet and gloves to hide their witchy hands. They hate children and hope to turn them all into mice. Things seemed suspicious indeed...

The fun began with scenes from The Witches movie (coming soon to the library) and an on time drawing.

One lucky girl won glow in the dark bracelets and another won a fun Halloween sticky note pad.

After that we learned about Roald Dahl and his interesting life from Taylor.  To learn more about him you can scroll down to our previous post.

 

 Then the girls and their moms split up into two teams - the brown mice and the white mice.  Yara asked them questions to see who could remember the most trivia from the book.  The girls had such great memories and were able to answer all of the questions with ease.

Tammra led the book discussion.  Everyone LOVED the book. We talked about stereotypes, mottos, witches and grandmothers. The girls speculated on how the story may have continued and what it might be like to live life as a mouse.

Every one of the girls had an interesting perspective to add to our discussion. 

After the discussion it was time to make our own Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse Maker potion.

        

      

Recipe for  Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse Maker

1 gruntle’s egg

The claw of a crrrabrrruncher

Beak of a blabbersnitch

Snout of a grrrobblesqvirt

Tongue of a catsprrringer

Our Recipe for the Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse Maker

(Brew-Ha-Ha Punch)

2 cups sugar     2 quarts water     2 (0.13oz) envelopes lime drink mix

46 oz can pineapple juice     1 quart ginger ale     1 pound dry ice

Stir together sugar and 2 quarts water until sugar is dissolved.  Stir in remaining ingredients.  Add dry ice.

Makes 4 quarts

Next, afterTammra had a special spell put on her hands, she took her gloves off and showed the girls how to make mice out of pipe cleaners.

You can find the instructions to make the mice here.

The girls had fun making mice in the colors they would be if they happened to be turned into a mouse by a witch.

For refreshements we caught a few mice to serve to our guests along with crackers and cheese and the Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse Maker potion.

Recipe for Munchable Mice

6 oz pkg semi-sweet chocolate chips     2 t. shortening

24 marachino cherries with stems, well drained

24 chocolate kiss candies     48 almond slices

Garnish:  white and red gel icing

Melt chocolate chips and shortening in a double boiler over low heat; stir until smooth.  To make each mouse, hold a cherry by the stem and dip into melted chocolate mixture.  Set on wax paper; press a chocolate kiss onto opposite side of cherry from stem.  For ears, insert 2 almond slices between cherry and chocolate drop.  If desired, pipe 2 white icing dots with red icing centers for eyes.  Cover; diip refrigerated.  Makes 2 dozen.

You might like to watch this video of Roald Dahl talking to children about witches.

The book we are reading for next month's discussion is Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko.  Copies are available to check out at the library.  You can read more about Great Reads for Girls here.