Customer Reviews

The Three Witches

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an lower elemtary reading teacher and huge Zora Neale Hurston fan I was thrilled to find this book. Beautifully illustrated and written to be shared out loud, this book is a great asset to any reading program which tries to turn kids on to the joy of our literature. Hurston was one of the greatest folklore collectors of the last century and a magnificent personality. Introducing her to young children comes not a moment too soon. This story is fun to use when discussing folklore motifs that can be traced in other great books, like Wiley and the Hairy Man. I hope there are more like this to come.

I was excited when I saw this book at the library and checked it out without hesitation because I'm always excited to read folklore, legend and mythology (original or re-versioned), but this that's about as far as the excitement got for me. The cover art is cool, quite vibrant and just the right mix of scary/silly for the age range this book is aimed at...but the artwork inside just doesn't do anything for me...it's rather flat and two dimensional, it has no depth. The only thing it really has going for it is that it's quite vibrant and lively in the authors choice of color...there just isn't any dimension to it and that takes away from the story for me.

The story itself is ok, but not great. I found it difficult to tell who is speaking when and how it should be read aloud...I had to read it myself twice and then once out loud before I got a sense of how best to read it to my kids. I don't mind working hard to get something right, but this just didn't work for me. I give it a C+, it's a great idea...but the execution just doesn't work for me. Most of all I get the sense that this would work best in a larger group reading (rehearsed ahead of time) where you could get a couple of children to read the brother and sisters parts with a narrative story teller doing the rest (all at the same time), I think it would build better to climax and be more engaging for the listeners. I should like to try that sometime and see if The Three Witches is more fun that way!