The Witches by Roald Dahl

Today, I finished reading another book with my brother. Or to be very accurate, I finished reading another book to my brother - The Witches by Roald Dahl. I've realised that quite unlike me, my brother has no interest in the world of Enid Blyton (then again, I haven't tried to Famous Five series, just her short stories); instead, he likes Roald Dahl, perhaps because his world is darker and more exciting. So, here's the story of the time I read The Witches to my brother.
At first, it was really tough getting him to listen to The Witches. I have a feeling it's because of the television, although he pretended it was because he was afraid. But after we reached the chapter where you learn to spot a witch, he became much more interested.

And for the next few weeks, kept checking everybody to "make sure their not a witch". I kept showing him my toes :D

After this, things started going well. There were quite a few occasions where he would turn off the television and go "Two words. The. Witches." And of course, I was so happy whenever that occurred. It's getting very hard to get my brother away from the television and I don't know how to to that remotely from Japan.

Ok, so now I'm going to pause and digress a little bit. Did you know that chapter titles are very useful? Because I can't read more than a few chapters at one go (at one point, we had time for one chapter a day), telling him the next chapter titles is an easy way to get him interested. Asking him things like what happened in "Mr and Mrs Jenkins meet Bruno" can really get him speculating on what happens. Plus, whenever he was bored with the book, telling him the next chapter and closing the book sparks some anticipation, which means he didn't lose that much interest.

Today was the last day. I'm actually really glad because I wanted to finish one more book with him before I leave. When I finished the book, I asked him what he thought and he said he loved it and that it was scary in a good way ^^

I really should introduce a few more titles to him before I leave. That way, he has books that he'll want to read. Now, I should either get him to read by himself or find some kind person to read to him(:

Btw, Quentin Blake is a genius. My brother and I love his illustrations and one way of keeping his attention on the page is to tell him "the next page has pictures."