"One child a week is fifty-two a year. Squish them and squiggle them and make them disappear." This is a story about REAL WITCHES. Real witches dress in ordinary clothes, have ordinary jobs and look very much like ordinary people. But they are far from ORDINARY . . . The Grand High Witch, leader of all the witches, has a plan to make each and every child disappear. That is, unless one boy and his grandmother can stop her . . . The text in this edition of The Witches was updated in 2022 for young independent readers.