Winnie the Witch Celebrates 25th Anniversary

Winnie the Witch and her black cat Wilbur have been delighting children with their magical capers for 25 years. The fun, and often chaotic, stories by Valerie Thomas are illustrated in immense detail by the brilliant Korky Paul. Thus creating a collection of stories that delight young readers and entertain them for hours.

Winnie the Witch is available in 12 original fantastic picture books (written by Valerie Thomas), plus 3 treasury collections, a sticker book and special 25th anniversary edition of the first ever Winnie book, ‘Winnie the Witch’. There are also 15 young reader fiction books (written by Laura Owen), both series are illustrated by Korky Paul. The Winnie the Witch series has sold over five million copies worldwide and has been translated into over twenty-five languages.

I have a 4-year-old daughter who adores Winnie the Witch picture books and it is quite usual to return from the library with every Winnie the Witch book they have on the shelves! And she asks to read them with us again, again and again. It’s just brilliant, as a parent, to see the enthusiasm, the laughter and pure enjoyment my daughter gets from the Winnie the Witch series. She also refers to her auntie’s black cat as Wibur now too!

Due to my daughter’s obsession with Winnie the Witch, we have read all of the Winnie the Witch books, including the treasury editions!:

Winnie the Witch
Winnie’s Amazing Pumpkin
Winnie’s New Computer
Winnie Under the Sea
Winnie Flies Again
Winnie’s Magic Wand
Winnie’s Midnight Dragon
Winnie in Winter
Winnie at the Seaside
Winnie in Space
Winnie’s Flying Carpet
Happy Birthday Winnie!
Winnie’s Magic Moments (Treasury of Winnie’s New Computer, Winnie’s Magic Wand, 
Winnie at the Seaside)
Winnie’s Madcap Mishaps (Treasury of Winnie the Witch, Winnie Flies Again, 
Winnie in Winter)
Winnie’s Crazy Capers (Treasury of Winnie’s Midnight Dragon, Winnie’s Midnight Dragon, Winnie’s Flying Carpet)

Each story Winnie utters her famous spell-cast of ‘Abracadbra’, which usually sees chaos ensure! Not only are the stories great and easy to follow, the illustrations completely transform the stories to a new level. They are so detailed, from Winnie’s hairy legs and washing line on the roof, to the millions of items in her kitchen or flowers in her garden. The ‘end papers’, (the pages that come before and after the story) are always drawn by children and are based on the story of the book they appear in. It’s a lovely touch, and my daughter enjoys looking at these and explaining the pictures to us!

It would be great to see Winnie the Witch merchandise available, and of course more Winnie the Witch books! We’re excited to hear that ‘Winnie’s Dinosaur Day’ (ISBN 978-0-19-279403-1) is due out in March 2013 (picture book).

For all the teachers out there the publisher, Oxford University Press (OUP) offer a free Winnie the Witch teacher resource pack for both picture books and the fiction series. You can download the pack here http://www.oup.com/oxed/children/winnieteacherpack/.

 
For fans of Winnie the Witch, you can visit Winnie at www.winnie-the-witch.com to find out about the authors, the books and much, much more!

Here’s to 25 more years of Winnie the Witch and her black cat Wilbur.