Oxford Bookworms Library: The Witches of Pendle: Level 1: 400-Word Vocabulary

by Rowena Akinyemi, Rudyard Kipling

This award-winning collection of adapted classic literature and original stories develops reading skills for low-beginning through advanced students.

Accessible language and carefully controlled vocabulary build students' reading confidence.

Introductions at the beginning of each story, illustrations throughout, and glossaries help build comprehension.

Before, during, and after reading activities included in the back of each book strengthen student comprehension.

Audio versions of selected titles provide great models of intonation and pronunciation of difficult words.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Rowena Akinyemi is British, and after many years in Africa, she now lives and works in Cambridge. She was worked in English Language Teaching for twenty years, in Africa and England, and has been writing ELT fiction for ten years. Love or money? Was her first story for the Oxford Bookworms Library, and she has now written several other stories for the series, including Remeber Miranda and The Witches of Pendle (both at Stage 1). She has also written books for children. One of her favourite pastimes is reading detective stories.

Reviews

[Seung Hoon]

The story starts in the prison of Lancaster Castle in 1634 where 20 women are prisoners because they are believed to be witches. One of them is Jennet Device. she tells her story why she is there. Her family are all witches including her grandmother, mother, older sister and older brother. She lost her family when she was 9 years old. The government of London executed her family because she told the judges the truth about her family's history of witchcraft. Jennet is not a witch because she has a different father. But, as time goes by, people still think she is a witch so after many years, she is accused and put to prison. Now, she is waiting for someone to help her so she can finish her story.
The book has many pictures so I can understand it well. The story stimulates my imagination about witches and the things that they do. Although the ending of the story is not enough, it shows many good values about telling the truth. The sad part of the story is that Jennet betrayed her own familly because of that she lost them.
Over all, "The Witches of Pendle" is an entertaining book.

[Abrar Alarjan]

I did not like it because I finally feel it is open .The story might want to tell us how bad the liar was doing.

القصة أشعر بأنه نهايتها غير منطقية ،ولكنني مثلما قلت في قصة سابقة لأكسفورد ،يهمني هنا تطوير اللغة ،وليس التعمق في الأدب وتفاصيل القصة .

ولكن يبدو بأن هذه القصة حقيقة وقد وقعت فعليًا في انجلترا في القرن السادس عشر لميلاد ،يمكنك قراءتها هنا من ويكبييديا باللغة الإنجليزية: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendl...

[Thandar]

The story is about a witch family who kills people except the youngest daughter Jennet Device.
The truth killed the rest of the family but lies will soon trouble Jennet....

[Huda Aweys]

Its try to login the world of witches , but there were a lot of points in it weren't make sense in fact ! .. No witches act madly and confess with this easy way like that ! both in fiction works or in a real life !

[Jasmine Maung]

It's about a girl who is one of the family member. Everybody thinks she's witch because the people from her family were witches. But she wasn't.

[Willemijn]

I took this one home with me after a visit to my local library. I didn't realise it was a book made for beginner readers (specifically kids) at that time. So, naturally, this book was way too simplistic and way too boring. I've been interested in the Witches of Pendle for a long time and I've watched quite a few documentaries about it. So this book felt like the weakest cup of tea you can imagine compared to all the things I've learnt about this topic so far.

Nonetheless, for the beginner reader this probably would be a good book. It's not too long. It doesn't have a lot of details. All of the events happen rather quickly and it's not a plot heavy story.

There's a vocabulary list at the end of the book. But there's also a few pages with pre-reading, whilst-reading and post-reading activities. As a teacher, I love to see these materials being provided by the actual book. It can invite the reader to read more consciously, but it also offers a parent, a sibling or a teacher tools to help the reader understand the story better.

Too bad I didn't realise this book is not meant for me but for a different audience. I loved the creepy black and white art though! I think books should have more art no matter what target group they have.

[Afifa]

very interesting story, It was confusing in the beginning, but after that every thing of the story become clearer and I enjoy it

[Nia F. S. Kartadilaga]

It's a short story about 20 women in the prison of Lancaster Castle who were jailed because of something people believed as witchcraft. Yes, they're witches, as people believed. The Witches of Pendle is told from Jennet Device's point of view. She told us about her "journey" with the witches; her family. All of her family members are witches, but Jennet isn't one of them because she has different father. It answers why Jennet never had any experiences in cursing or killing people like her family did. Practically, Jennet is a normal human. Did people believe that Jennet isn't a witch? I love this books. It's so simple and told us something related to our daily life where people easily judging others based on what we want to believe as the truth. And the worst is, our family members also have contribution in leading what people want to believe about us as a person, and vice versa.

[Robyn]

A weird dark book. I read this in Chinese as part of a reading-level improvement series targeted at young English learners (english-mandarin side-by-side). I think it's a weird choice to represent the West to Chinese kids.... Anyway, cool story, but little to no resolution, which I find frustrating.

[Lucy]

I very enjoy this book, and I think the Jennet Device was very pool, because went she was yong, she did’t have many food to eat and she never Satiate, and I think this book was simple but they was talk about many content, and let me know many truth, I was very tank my mother, it is she make by this book.

[Norah]

I read this book after I finished my final exam at university library, I just want an easy book to return to my usual reading routines. It was okay but the ending was so ordinary I thought something excited will happen.

[Amaor]

actually I don't believe witches can really kill people with a look or a word. They usually make something to scare people only.

[Jua Nuñez]

la verdad te condena a muerte y la mentira también 🫠

[Katie MacDonald]

A 42 page story about people and witches in the 1600s. Easy and fast read, I enjoyed it overall.

[Nástenka]

From a not childish point of view, this is a story about how broken people manage hell to keep on living.

[Shuhei]

1.Oxford level 1
2.5/13=30min 5/14=100min
3.witch's daughter arrested her witch family name
4.I told the truth, and the truth killed my family, but now, lies are going to kill me.
The contrast of truth and lie is interesting.
5.This is a story about a girl(Jennet) and her family was all witches. In this story, the era is 1600s, then people hate witches. One day, her sister cursed a man because she need some food to eat. The man didn't die, but her sister and family had to go court. Before went to court, Jennet knew the surprising fact. All of her family cursed and killed people except her and she was a child between different father, so she is not a witch. Then, she escaped from the family and go to a kind rich man's house. The rich man is kind, so he helped her. At the court, she told about her family and her family was killed because of her testimony. After that, she send a happy life. However, one day she was said that she is witch and she killed someone. Actually it was a lie, but her last name is same as witch family, so people did not believe her, and she was put in prison. I thought, it was really bad end. I'm not comfortable with it. I thought a lot, was she correct? Because of her, her family was dead (of course she was right, family made a crime). Hummmm..... I had really difficult sense about this book.

[文弥 坂本]

1. Oxford level 1
2. 6/15 40min 6/18 40min
3. Witch, curse, dog, ugly, hungry, angry, judge
4. A:They are watching me, and waiting for me. I can never be free of them.
B: she wanted to be free her witch family and she made it once by let humans kill her families, but in the end she will meet them after the execution.
5. I knew about witch, but I didn't know what can they do to surprise humans. Therefore, it was a good chance to learn about witch!
This story wasn't happy one, and story end with false charge. The false charge still happens today, so we should be careful to avoid the false charge.

[Tara]

This is a good introduction to the true story of the Pendle witches, very easy to read for school-age children with questions and discussion topics at the end. It is written in the voice of Jennet Device, a young girl who became the prosecution's star witness. Good choice, because young readers can identify with Jennet - but, however, this means that only one person's version of events is told, and it was a very complex case. The woodcut illustrations are beautiful and very evocative of the early 17th century.

[Yuna Tatsuoka]

Oxford bookworms library:true stories
12/5=80 minutes

7-word summary: a girl, family, witches, dark, villagers, afraid and death

Discussion Questions:
1, If you were a wicth, do you want to kill somebody you hate?
No, I don't because I afraid of killing somebody.
2, Do you believe Witches?
No. I afraid them.

This story is very easy to read but it is dismal story. I learned human's shiftiness from it. It is not happy story but you can learn a lot of things of humans so I want you to read it.

[Yorika Oka]

Oxford reader Level1
Time=11/13 85minutes
seven word summary=family-witch-murderer-prison-lie-poor-curse
Do you want to be a witch?
If you can be a witch, what do you want to do?
I want to be witch. I want to help people with witch's power.
Actually, I don't like the end of this story. A main character lost her family because of her, and she will end her life because of her family. I was very sorry to know that she have never given love by her mother.

[Saki]

Oxford1
Time= 11/15 90minutes
Seven word summary=witches, prison, lie, dog, kill, family, curse
Do you want to be a witch or a wizard??
= I want to be a witch, and if I were a witch, I want to make people happy to use my power like Harry Potter.

This story is difficult to image. There is no family love, and main character was killed by her family. Her mother didn't love her at all. Her family was also killed by her honestly evidence. It was too bad end story.

[ゆきてぃ]

Oxford Readers, level 1.
Time 5/8 = 45min.
Seven word summary / a girl, witches, family, lie & truth, kill, prison, death

Q. If you were a witch, what would you want to do?
A. If I were a witch, I would like to fly and I would like to go all over the world.

This book was little scary and exciting. It was not happy end but so interesting. I want you to read this story.

[Chloé Jacobs]

this story is about a girl who lived between witches familly members so that everybody else thought she was the same but the truth is that she wasn't, but in the end a small boy lied and said that he saw her cursing a man

[Namiko]

This is a witch story. People want to blame someone when something bad happens. It is mostly poor people to be blamed.

[107rinoNeko]

わかっていたけど、ハッピーな話ではない。人間って汚いなぁ。こんなにも嫌な気持ちになるのは、自分も人間で、つまり、同族嫌悪なんだろう。星２つなのは、好きではないからだが、多くの人に読んで欲しい話ではある。

[Estelle]

Read for leisure

[Keera Agileera]

a story of a girl called Jannet from Dévice familly, & it's why every body thought she's like any of her familly members a "witch"

[Sandra Gerrits]

I found this book too simplistic for the topic it covered.

[Leonarda Dujmić]

I love this book.It's intresting and I will read more Oxford bookworms.

[İREM]

I want to read this book illustrated