The River Witches

by Ben Shecter

Andrew is sent to help in Aunt Lizard's apothecary shop for the summer.

180 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Tristan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was pleasant enough, in the style of American children's fiction of the period (it was published in 1979), but it was far from a shining example of the genre. The River Witches had mostly flat characterization and although it had a very good premise, was ultimately disappointing. Andrew and Aunt Elizabeth are interesting (if underdeveloped) but everyone else is rather flat. Why is everyone so afraid of the witches? What makes Celestial Grace a Bad Witch? I thought for sure Ashton touched the book when Pooter had it, but maybe not, and it just all at once undid making Andrew into a warlock--as far as I can tell. Although at the end, he can almost (or maybe can) understand Pooter, so maybe it didn't undo the "conversion" fully, and he definitely has lost the prejudice against witches. Who are Peter Brock and his Uncle Hendrick, the minister, why are they so hell-bent on ruining the witches and why can't the witches do anything about it? Is he really as bad as Aunt Elizabeth makes him out to be? I realize that this book was aimed at children, but all the holes in the plot made it difficult to even enjoy the rollicking good story that could have been here.
I also found the device of the talking animals to be particularly annoying. Pooter was depicted as talking just like the humans did, and it was much too long before I realized that his speech was translated barking, and not something that the humans could understand, given that often, the human characters would respond with a comment that could be equally in response to his or to the previous human character to speak.

[Allison Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://youtu.be/Km1T66gtBFA My thoughts are here in this video.

[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I FINISHED IT IN 2 HOURSSSS ITS SO CUTE ILOVED IT (only w book in my school library and it was confusing but that made me want to figure it out and read moreeee)