Week 5: Black Maria

This week I read the children’s book Black Maria and it was my first time I’d ever read a book that was about witches before. The narrator of this book is a little girl named Mig, who’s brother Chris and mother go to visit their Aunt Maria after their father died on his way to go see her in Cranbury- on -Sea. Aunt Maria fits many of the stereotypical archetypes of witches that we see in other movies and novels. She’s an old lady with magical powers and is extremely controlling and will do anything to get her way. She even goes as far to turn Chris into a wolf when he accuses her of killing their father. While witches are often depicted as ugly creatures, covered in warts and pointed noses, all of the cover artwork I’ve seen depicting Aunt Maria shows her looking like a sweet old woman with the qualities of a grandmother with walking sticks and all. Aunt Maria is only related to Mig because she married into her father’s side of the family which is similar to the step mother witch archetype that is often added since there is no blood relation to the family. Aunt Maria is extremely controlling and would passive aggressively mention how things aren’t being done to her standards to invoke guilt in Mig, her mother, and Chris even if it was as small as her eggs weren’t being cooked the way she likes.