Meg to Mildred

From Meg to Mildred - thoughts on How witches in children’s books make us more accepting of the ‘other’.  

I’ve always kept a soft spot in my heart, and my heaving bookcase, for all the wonderful witches that appeared in children’s books.  If we ignore the bad witch stereotype portrayed in fairy tales and look towards works published within the last century, there is a whole barrage of women and girls who were good witches.

Starting with Meg, of ‘Meg and Mog’ at age three, we see a girl and her cat who wants to be a friend to all, then onto Dorrie the little witch, who was always getting into mischief, who had odd socks and a little black cat, showed us it was ok to make mistakes as long as you learn from them, then moving onto other stories where the witch took on the role of the fairy godmother or grandmother figure, taking the witch from a clumsy but friendly child into an older figure who was to be respected, but was also friendly and warm too.

Moving on again from the wise old ladies back to younger girls, and onto Mildred Hubble of ‘the worst witch’ we were reminded once again that the witch could be the outsider, the girl who is bullied for being a little bit different to everyone else. Mildred wasn’t the best witch at her school, she wasn’t the smartest or best at flying or at potions, and still triumphed in the end. These girls started planting the seed from day one that it was ok if you were different, or if your friend was different to everyone else around you, a seed that has carried on by an extent to Hermoine Granger of Harry Potter, and fully onwards into this decade by  the natural successor to the ‘worst witch’ series, ‘Witch Wars’ written by Sibéal Pounder.

It is these girls who paved the way for us to carry on being different, by showing us when we are young and have not learned the prejudices of the world that it is ok to be the odd one out as we grow up, whether that means being gay, transgender, having a disability, being mixed race, lack of skin pigmentation, and so on,  or even becoming the tattooed vegan in a family who are allergic to vegetables, they all beat their bullies, overcame their obstacles and revelled in being the ‘other’, giving us that permission gained in childhood to wave our broomstick [flag] high.