The Witches

What do you do when you love someone's stories but hate their politics? In my case you read his stories!
Roald Dahl is famous for books such as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "James and the Giant Peach" among others. He is also somewhat infamous, for his marriage to actress Patricia Neil and his politics. That being said, he still writes a darn good story. Some of my personal favorites in addition to the ones mentioned are "Danny and the Champion of the World",  "The BFG", and keeping within the season, "The Witches".
"The Witches" is a story told in the first person by a young boy. He lives with his grandmother after his parents are killed in a car accident in Norway. The grandmother is a very smart woman who knows all about witches. She warns the boy that the cruelest, most horrible witches in the world live in England. She also tells him how to spot them. One day an entire convention <or is it coven?> of witches turns up at the hotel a boy and his grandmother are staying. They have an evil plot to turn all the children in England into mice. It is up to the boy to foil these wicked witches.
Roald Dahl writes excellent stories, which your slighter older children will especially enjoy for the "gross factor" that runs through them. Some say he writes sexist themed stories, but I don't think that's true. In order to be sexist you have to favor one sex over the other. Roald Dahl had a very clever young lady, Matilda as a heroine for one of his books. The allegations of sexism comes from how he portrays the evil women in his book. But evil men are portrayed equally in his stories too.
When I look at Roald Dahl's writing I see a man who is the product of his times, writing about children, for children, from a child's point of view. That's not to say sweet and innocent. That's the romantic ideal of a child. Real children talk back, pick their noses, swear and defy their elders. That's exactly how Roald Dahl writes.
As for "The Witches," if you are looking for an excellent story for this month, that doesn't emphasize the Halloween theme, this is the one. Enjoy it, but don't let anyone offer you "Formula 86" while you read it!