Bitli Vini

Winnie the Witch

by Laura Owen, Korky Paul (Illustrator), Bülent O. Doğan (tr)

Dört Şahane Hikâye Daha
Sakar Cadı Vini her şeyi farklı yapar!
Kumdan bir kalede yaşar,
zamanda geri gider,
düğün planlar,
hain bitleri bir bir ayıklar...

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1900

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

See Pippa Goodhart

Reviews

[Jessica Eady · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Winnie’ books are a series that explore her adventures with her pet cat Wilbur. All the short stories are composed of 4 smaller stories into manageable reading sections for both independent and group reading, ideal for an end of day treat or time filler.
Nitty Winnie’s first short story begins with a real-life situation that some people may have experienced, but the moral of the story reveals that during everything and despite the scenario it will all be okay and that there are solutions to these situations and problems. A reassuring feeling for some children who may have experienced or in future similar situations.
The story is illustrated with wonderful drawing that capture a child’s attention, which could be beneficial to engage children in reading. However, this can also be considered a slight distraction for some children only looking at the imagery instead of reading the text. Contradictory to this the images could support their reading and learning of new words as they sound out and connect the image to develop their understanding.
Throughout the story onomatopoeic words are highlighted in bold placing emphasis on words that sound like sounds and allowing the reader to exaggerate the sound. The bold font is a que for both teacher and pupil to make the book more exiting and experiment with different tones of voice.
The creative writing through out uses the ‘ing’ suffix on multiple verbs, the use of different verbs will extend a child’s vocabulary and support their ability in creative writing. For this reason, I believe these stories are targeted at children in the higher end of KS1 and lower end of KS2.
Humor is used through the story with funny quotes that make both the teacher and child giggle and enjoy them. The stories not only have a story line that have you wanting to find out the end, the catch phrase throughout of ‘Abracadabra’ provides the opportunity for a whole group contribution to the story. If used appropriately an action could be added to the story when this word is said or ‘repeat after me’ between the teacher and pupil.
I would recommend this book to be used by a teacher reading to pupil or as an independent reading activity as I feel it offers a range of literacy skills that are crucial to developing a child’s vocabulary and using the knowledge learnt within creative writing. Any new words that they may have no encountered within the story can also be used as an additional activity to discover meaning to the word. This allows children to understand and use it within the correct context.

[Tim Roast · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book, even if a little short.

There are four all-new Winnie the Witch stories in here:

* Winnie's Wet Weekend
* Jurassic Winnie
* A Wedding for Winnie
* Nitty Winnie

The first story sees Winnie having a flooded house so she escapes to a beach where she builds a sandcastle and magics herself to live in it. The second story sees Winnie magic her way back to when dinosaurs were around. The third sees Winnie marry off her sister, and the fourth sees Winnie get nits.

All the stories interestingly start with sounds ("Plip! Plop!", "Snip-snap!", "Bing-bong!" and "La-di-tiddly-doo-daa!") and there is a real quirky use of language throughout. Like the alarm clock being called the alarm croc, or Winnie exclaiming "flying fish fingers" or "you look as lovely as a little lamb licking a lolly."

There are also lots of busy, interesting pictures to accompany the text which are just as quirky. However the book is just about 45 minutes in length, but this is probably more to do with the age group this is aimed at (newly confident readers).

The whole package is perfect for youngsters who have a sense of humour.

[Wilde Sky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four short stories about an unusual witch and her feline friend.

Each of the stories are quite simple but are well written / drawn.

A book squarely aimed at young children which hits the mark.

[Emily]

Ages 5-8

[Geoff Battle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great half-way house between the picture books (pre-school/year 1) and the more wordy stories that have been available previously (year 3 up). This collection of short stories still has plenty of monochromatic pictures to entertain younger schoolchildren though. A strong reader may be able to self-read in year 2, however made up words might pose a problem to comprehension.

So, these are still best used as stories to listen to for younger children and their shorter length present ideal opportunities for bedtime witchery. They cover varied content and Winnie's adventures are as daft as ever.