James, Jim, and the Witches

Over the past year, I kept hearing about a novel called James, by Percival Everett. It’s a retelling of Mark Twain’s masterpiece The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the perspective of Huck’s African American friend, Jim.   

I was hesitant to read it because up to that time I generally didn’t like retellings. My feeling was that writers should tell their own stories.  

But people kept saying how wonderful the book was. Then it was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. So I decided I should find out what the fuss was all about.   

What I learned—which should have been no surprise—was that changing the perspective can literally change the story. We observe Jim, who brings an adult view that Huck, as a 13-year-old white boy, was unable to see. To Jim, this adult view was James, a man who spoke and acted in a way that was quite different from the side he showed white people. 

Along the way, we watch James’s language style switch back and forth, depending on whether his audience is Black or white. We see James’s biracial friends pass as white. We experience some of the fear that white people, barely even thinking about it, engendered in slaves and others. 

This beautifully written novel is in no way a copy of Twain. Instead it is a story of its own, an exploration of the vast difference between Black and white, James and Jim.  

Just a few words about Roald Dahl’s children's book The Witches. It’s hard to imagine a story more different from James.  

Roald Dahl’s books first caught my eye because of the wonderful art, by Quentin Blake. It happened that at an early job I edited a series, Monster Books, which were illustrated by Blake. I had always loved his work, which turned out to be perfectly complemented by Roald Dahl.   

This particular story, one of many by Dahl, is about a worldwide group of witches who catch a young boy and transform him into a mouse—but it’s a good thing! Read it and find out why.