Aunt Maria, Halloweentown, and The Crucible.

Aunt Maria was a really frustrating book to read because the mother was such a pushover. I, for one, know that after a few days of trying to be nice, my mom would tell Aunt Maria to back off. Chris was by far my favorite character because he was the only one willing to stand up to Aunt Maria. In the end, that didn't seem to do him any good as he was turned into a wolf. 

What I find funny is the fact that, depending on the story, a witch can either be good or bad- which is something we don't see very often. Let's take cyclops's for instance. They are never perceived as good. even though the only real consistent difference between cyclops's and humans is that humans have one extra eye. So why are witches one of the only mystical characters that can be both good and bad? What about unicorns? Why aren't there any evil unicorns? I digress.

Anyway, We have bad witches and we have good witches. Bad witches include: The Wicked Witch of the West, Aunt Maria, the 3 witches from Hocus Pocus, etc. Good witched include: Glenda the Good Witch, Marty from Halloweentown, Samantha from Bewitched, Sabrina and her family, etc. BUT THEN we have the historical significance of witches. I reread The Crucible recently and realized that witches were actually a huge concern in the 1600's. Even though witches didn't actually exist, people from that time period were paranoid that anyone could be a witch, and they were willing to drown or burn their own family just to be sure that they were safe, which is just an interesting thought.