The Terror of Knowing

Welcome one and all to this week’s Top 5 Wednesday post! For those of you who don’t know Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme/challenge which was created by the wonderful Lainey from gingereadslainey and is now overseen by the equally lovely Sam from Thoughts of Tomes. Every Wednesday, participants devise their Top 5 based on a given topic.

This Wednesday’s topic is Books Featuring Witches: So there is a topic later this month about paranormal creatures, but 1. witches aren’t creatures and 2. they deserve their own topic. These can be “witch books” or books that happen to feature witches as characters, whether they are main characters or side characters. 

5. The Worst Witch series – Jill Murphy

This is probably one of my earliest forays into the world of witches and witchcraft – I adored these books, and then they became a TV show and I ate that up too. Murphy’s books told the first tale I’d read of a boarding school attended by witches and I just wanted so badly to join Mildred Hubble and her pals at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches.

4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

Let’s just get this one nice and out of the way early, shall we? Is there a T5W that goes by where I don’t feel the need to mention Harry Potter? Even though I feel like Harry Potter might be a given for this question… I’m still mentioning it anyway. One of the things I love about the fourth book (which I know is an unpopular one) is getting to see other wizards and witches, particularly from Beauxbatons, and I’m so glad that the continuing Wizarding World of JK Rowling output is also showing readers/viewers different countries’ witches and wizards.

3. His Dark Materials trilogy – Philip Pullman

I remember reading about the witch clans and Serafina Pekkala and thinking those women were badass and I wanted to be like them. Years later and I’m not sure my opinion has changed – I’m currently doing a read-through of the trilogy to make sure though.

2. Grishaverse, esp. Six of Crows – Leigh Bardugo

I can’t not include the Grisha because they are amazing. Would I say they’re “witches” in the traditional sense? Well, yes, because it fits my argument- Nina is repeatedly called a witch by Matthias, the stern Fjerdan witchhunter who obviously is going to fall in love with her (who wouldn’t?), and given how formidable her powers are, it’s easy to see why her kind inspires fear in the druskelle people.

1. The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman

Liza Hempstock is a witch and she’s fab. She was accused of witchcraft and burned alive, hence why she’s buried in the unhallowed ground beside Bod’s graveyard. Finding Liza sad because of her unmarked grave, Bod vows to find a headstone for her, and she later repays the favour when she rescues him from the pawnbroker who tries to kidnap him. She also says what remains one of my favourite quotes in the entire book, and of all-time, actually: “Truly, life is wasted on the living, Nobody Owens. For one of us is too foolish to live, and it is not I.”

That’s it for now, folks, those were my Top 5 books featuring witches. I could always use some more recommendations so what are some of your favourite books featuring witches? I’d always welcome recs! And be sure to link me to your Top 5 Wednesday post, if you have one, as I’d love to read it.

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