While I don't think this aged very well (there's a few instances of fatphobia and outdated language), I found this childhood reread to be very disturbing as an adult, therefore the 4 star rating.

I read the award-winning (why does this fact stick out in my mind? I've never given any Rhett Butler damns about awards. Probably because I've never won any) The Witches of Worm a long ass time ago. Basing this on my memories of a long ass time ago I'd say it was ultimately not THAT great (not because of expectations built up from awards, I swear).I'm thinking of it now 'cause I feel paranoid and crazy like the young chick in this book. I was lonely and had emotional problems like her (ahem not

Consider me flying over you at this moment, zigzagging over your head on my quickest broom, cackling with glee. Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee.I feel incredibly alive right now, spirited you might say, just knowing that some crazy, politically incorrect fiction like this from the early 1970s still exists.Look at me! Wheeee!How lucky are we that no one has burned all the copies of this book yet? (Just try and grab my copy, y'all, and see what happens to your hand). I don't even need to decide if thi...

I picked this up because I loved The Egypt Game as a kid, I haven't read anything else by Zilpha Keatley Snyder and I have thing for 1970s Newbery Honor books. The main character shares my name (how very 1970s) and the central storyline is about an ugly, evil cat she sort of accidentally adopts. In a very childish way, this made me really connect with Jessica, as I also have a sort of ugly, definitely evil cat who I occasionally resent and despise and I'm pretty certain he's got a demonic posses...

This was weird, but I liked it for the most part. Jessica is a young girl who is ignored by her mother, Joy. Joy had Jessica when she was a kid herself and now likes to pretend that there is no Jessica. Joy dates a lot and leaves Jessica by herself. Jessica is a strange kid. She is antisocial, but used to have a best friend who lived in her building who now has nothing to do with her. You don't discover why Brandon deserted her until almost the end.At the very beginning, Jessica discovers an odd...

A creepy book for younger readers with plenty of topics for discussion. It's hard to believe it's nearly 50-years-old, the only clue is the fact the kids still use the library!

This book scared the bejeezus out of me when I first read it in middle school. It didn't scare me as badly this time (thank goodness; last time I had to sleep with the lights on and locked my cat out of my room for two days), but it still is an incredibly creepy novel. It concerns Jessica, a lonely and angry girl who finds a blind, nearly hairless newborn kitten, and ends up raising it with the help of her catlady neighbor. Although she feels compelled to care for the cat, she finds it gross and...

This is an awesome children's horror story, which is really and truly frightening and psychological. Worm, the possessed cat, makes for both an object of sympathy and a terrifying villain. When the main character finds him, he is so pathetic, that you feel sorry for him, even as the main character is annoyed at all the extra work she has taken on to keep him alive. When he changes, it is a frightening change, the thing that makes it truly eerie is the subtly of it. This is probably the first sto...

I suggest reading Joe's review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - if you want a better plot synopsis. Essentially, Jessica becomes convinced that her kitten Worm is a witch's cat, and he is getting inside her head, making her do bad things. This is honestly a very good book, and the author certainly deserved the Newberry Award. It is a troubling look at a disturbed girl's life, and I think it works better as a book for adults, rather than children. Snyder's scenes between mother and d...

First-class, A1 horror novel.There are so many levels to this.Jessica goes out to a cave that she likes to play in. It's night. She's reading a book about the Salem witch trials. She hears a scratching, scuttling sound in the cave and discovers an abandoned kitten. It's hairless, eyeless, ugly and silent. She tries to give it to the local cat lady, who refuses to take care of it - it needs to be fed every two hours and helped to eliminate its waste.Jessica hates the kitten and is disgusted with

"We invite our own devils and we ourselves must exorcise them."This was an interesting read. Jessica is a lonely preteen girl whose mother, Joy, neglects, and her friend, Brandon, abuses (he hits her). Jessica herself is rather mean-spirited with no compassion for animals. She finds this kitten, a rare breed called an Abyssinian, and Jessica is disgusted by the kitten. She reluctantly takes care of it and her mother names it Worm. Jessica becomes more and more unhinged as the book progresses. Sh...

It's weird to reread this an adult because as a kid (this is true of many of Snyder's stories) it seems ambivalent whether there is actually magical stuff going on. Is her cat [gasp] a witch?! As adult it it obvious that this is an abused kid projecting crazy, rage-filled fantasies on her equally unlucky and abused kitten. Knowing what the score is makes it more disturbing, not less.

Jessica, whose mother Joy is frequently absent, finds herself the unwilling adoptive mother of an ugly kitten named Worm in this third Newbery-Honor book from the prolific Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Embittered by her mother’s neglectful behavior, her abandonment by her childhood friend Brandon, and haunted by dreams in which she is left alone in an endless void, Jessica comes to believe Worm can speak to her, and that he is responsible for the hateful things that she begins to do...The Witches of Wo...

"To be caught, so inescapably caught, was so shattering that for a moment Jessica felt terrified-lost and hopeless. She backed away, putting her hands up in front of her face, palms outward. She had done that for years, whenever she was badly frightened. When she was very small, she had often awakened with her hands before her eyes-to ward off the terror of the dream about the empty room." (PG. 78)Buddy read with @Beverly. I feel like there wasn't much to discuss except to say this was a weird o...

I'm not sure how many stars to give this book. The writing is good, the characters are well developed, but the story is quite disturbing. I worry that this book will cause people to be mean to cats like Jessica is to her cat. Although she nurses this cat from an abandoned newborn, she is so mean to it. I don't like the occult theme of this book either. I find it all so creepy. I didn't like the neighbor playing into Jessica's delusion. Jessica needed to be hospitalized before she really hurt som...

I image this 1973 Newbery honor book would give youngsters the heebie jeebies and it might take a more mature YA to sift through the overtones of paranormal to the fact that the author is making a strong statement about those who seem to blame others or outside forces for their own character defects.Jessica is more than a latch key child, she emotionally neglected by a selfish, immature and young mother. Astute in knowing she is not wanted, Jessica suffers dramatically and acts out viciously.Whe...

Autumn's witch-a-thon continues with my introduction to the fiction of Zilpha Keatley Snyder, her Newberry Medal winner The Witches of Worm. Published in 1972, the book arrived on my radar by virtue of its stellar reviews and while I'm very critical of what's become known as the Young Adult genre, I'm not above enjoying them, particularly those in the vein of Lois Duncan where teenagers vulnerable to the whims of adults encounter the supernatural. Terror and adolescence go hand in hand in this s...

I remember seeing this book everywhere when I was a kid, with hundreds of different covers, but I finally decided to give it a go when I saw it on the Bookmobile. I really like this. It has that perfect vibe of the classic children's books I read as a kid, probably because it is one of those books. It's literary and doesn't talk down to its audience, but it is also simple to read.Overall, its a breezy, slightly spooky book that I highly recommend!

"Belief in mysteries—all manner of mysteries—is the only lasting luxury in life." —The Witches of Worm, P. 116 "But now and then, beneath the outer numbness, something stirred, like a living pain waiting for the anesthetic to wear away." —The Witches of Worm, P. 101 This book is one of the most pleasant surprises in literature that I have had in quite some time. The Witches of Worm is a wonderfully smooth, completely enjoyable read, marked with evocatively descriptive language and enchantingly

July 13, 2013Although presented with evidence of having read The Witches of Worm when I was eight years old, I couldn't remember a thing about it. When I looked it up online and saw that it was about a cat appearing to "possess" a girl (say what?!) I decided it was time for a reread.I always liked Zilpha Keatley Snyder's books, especially The Egypt Game, which I've reread every few years since I first devoured it in elementary school. In contrast, when I reread The Witches of Worm a few days ago...