Roald Dahl's darkly funny masterpiece, The Witches , now available as a graphic novel from Eisner Award-winning artist Pénélope Bagieu! Witches are real, and they are very, very dangerous. They wear ordinary clothes and have ordinary jobs, living in ordinary towns all across the world -- and there's nothing they despise more than children. When an eight-year-old boy and his grandmother come face-to-face with the Grand High Witch herself, they may be the only ones who can stop the witches' latest plot to stamp out every last child in the country!This full-color graphic novel edition of Roald Dahl's The Witches , adapted and illustrated by Eisner Award winner Pénélope Bagieu, is the first-ever Dahl story to appear in this format. Graphic novel readers and Roald Dahl fans alike will relish this dynamic new take on a uniquely funny tale. GR 3–6-What a brash undertaking! To retell The Witches as a graphic novel and to replace Roald Dahl's familiar style—it would be unseemly if Bagieu didn't make it so utterly charged. The pacing is incredible as panel after panel and spot after spot of long views, close-ups, wide-angle perspectives, and facial zooms relay the story of a boy-turned-mouse who succeeds in ridding England of witches by putting a mouse-making serum into the soup they are served. This may lure an entirely new generation of readers into Dahl's books—at almost 300 pages, it's a sizable, satisfying tome. It's perfect fourth and fifth grade humor: grotesque humans, horrific witches in disguise as beautifully kitted-out women, with high heels and push-up bras, leering close takes of a chef's crotch as a mouse in his pants bulges, and another scene of the man in tidy whities, pants down. Is this in good taste? No. Is it funny? Yes. Let's leave controversy aside. Women fare badly, parents even worse, the message of the boy's acceptance of being a mouse with a lifespan that matches his caretaker dubious, and the chain-smoking grandmother (who has brown skin, as does her young charge) at the center of the tale won't win any awards as a healthy role model, but she is the most loving person present. VERDICT Warts and all, whether witches or Dahl, the book will be devoured by readers and shared widely among peers.—Kimberly Olson Fakih, School Library Journal Praise for Brazen by Pénélope Bagieu: "Bagieu's pen transforms these true stories into something that has the tone of a personalized fairy tale. And in the end, this turns out to be just perfect." -- The New York Times Praise for California Dreamin': Cass Elliot Before The Mamas & the Papas by Pénélope Bagieu: "Bagieu's drawings are superlative: soft pencil lines that convey detail without constraining her figures and that animate the characters' exuberant facial expressions." -- The Paris Review Praise for Exquisite Corpse by Pénélope Bagieu: "Pénélope Bagieu has mastered a magic trick... she can turn paper into flesh. And ink becomes lifeblood... her characters not only breathe and pulsate with vivid life. They also seem entirely, organically authentic in their own skin." -- The Washington Post Roald Dahl was a spy, ace fighter pilot, chocolate historian, and medical inventor. He was also the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , Matilda , The BFG , and many more brilliant stories. He remains the world's number one storyteller. Pénélope Bagieu was born in Paris in 1982, a few months after the original publication of Roald Dahl's The Witches . She is the bestselling author of several graphic novels, including the Harvey Award winner California Dreamin’ and Eisner Award winner Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World , which has been translated into 17 languages and adapted into an animated series. Pénélope Bagieu lives in Paris.