Winnie The Witch

Title: Winnie The Witch
Written by: Valerie Thomas
Illustrated by: Korky Paul
Ages: 4-8

Summary: Winnie The Witch lives with her black cat Wilbur in an all black house. The two seemingly coexist well, until Wilbur closes his bright green eyes, resulting in her being completely camouflaged. Winnie repeatedly runs into Wilbur until she gets the idea to make Wilbur bright green. This works well until Wilbur runs out into the lawn and once again his camouflage causes an accident. As a result, Winnie changes Wilbur into the colors of the rainbow. Wilbur however becomes embarrassed by the new look and Winnie soon feels a great deal of guilt. Winnie finally realizes a compromise when she waves her magic want and colors the inside of her house to normal colors and returns Wilbur back to his original black state.

Opinion: This rerelease of 1987 classic is both imaginative and humorous as it takes the reader on a wild ride. Korky Paul's use of color is a terrific display on how to use illustrations to match the text. The use of water colors and ink pens present a terrific contrast of the worlds of black and white and color.  The vocabulary is readable enough yet still challenging to have early readers to push themselves and enhance their vocabulary. I personally thought the book was hilarious and fun This is the first book of a long series and it is clear why this became an instant classic. I would maybe try and bring this into the curriculum in either a unit about colors or possibly a science unit dealt with camouflage. I would recommend this book to all youthful children and am extremely eager to continue reading other books in this series.