Season of the (fat) Witch

Fat In Picture Books, Chapter 2

Oct 14, 2024

In preparation for Halloween I thought I’d share some fat kidlit witches to get you in the spooky spirit!

If you’re new here: Fat In Picture Books used to be an instagram page, and is now it’s own section of The Wahlflower. It showcases and sometimes provides critical analysis of fat representation in children’s literature.

From “Los Gatos Black on Halloween” by Marisa Montes, illustrated by Yuyi Morales. Suggested by @aimeehagertyjohnson on instagram.

I’m sure I’m far from the first person to percolate on the ways in which the archetypal (stereotypical?) “witch” visually represents deviance from patriarchal, White supremacist, cis-normative standards of beauty and behavior.

Even thin witches can’t escape the myriad of what I’d call “aesthetic vices” that picture book creators often use to separate witches from “normal” (i.e. thin, White, young, femme, cis) women, to illustrate their “otherness”; large noses and chins, warts, mature age, unkept hair, scrappy clothing, green or pallid skin, crooked teeth, body hair. Fatness, if added to the list, becomes just one more way that witches are meant to tell readers “This is a woman who does not conform to rules. This person is grotesque, sinful, and should scare you.”

From “The Twisted Witch and other Spooky Riddles” by David Adler, illustrated by Victoria Chess, originally shared by @kidlitwitch on instagram.

As a creator, I’m always pondering “solutions” to problems like this. Is it to strip witches of these features (see the Hazel’s Healthy Hallowe’en, later in this post… big yikes) when after all, the features are not the problem. The culture that villainizes and stigmatizes them is. And, there is beauty, and power, and importance in witches defying so many fucked up ideas of what it means to be “good”. After all, as Mary Oliver famously wrote;

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

You only have to grow out your chin hairs,

and fly on a broom, wreaking havoc with your coven of crones,

and let the green, warty animal of your body love what it loves.

Am I remembering that right? (Sorry, Mary’s ghost. I love you).

So how do we change the culture? Big question. Lots of answers. None of them easy. In terms of picture book representation, sure, I guess why not put more button-nosed, perky-breasted, coiffed and waxed witches in your books? May the diversity of what witches can look like infinitely expand. But vitally, it cannot end there. This isn’t JUST a witches deserve to confrom to beauty standards too, thing. It also has to be a make more big-nosed, unkept, fat princesses, thing. And make more warty, old, hairy mermaids and fairies thing, too! Freedom from patriarchal beauty standards for traditionally femme supernatural beings! (And everyone!)

OK, now, for some more fat witch pics!

I want to give a big shout-out to @kidlitwitch on instagram who originally posted the images shared below. Follow their page if you want more witch content in your life!

More from “The Twisted Witch and other Spooky Riddles” by David Adler, illustrated by Victoria Chess. I can't speak for the quality of representation in this book... but the elephant image doesn't fill me with hope?

And now… in a grand finale of fat rep (this time very, very bad and tragic) we have Hazel’s Healthy Hallowe’en, by Kathryn Meyrick. TW for weight loss routine details.

Here’s the synopsis from GoodReads:

“After painstakingly losing weight so she can fit into a gown for Prince Boris's Hallowe’en ball, Hazel the witch gives herself the reward she has been craving.”

It’s so interesting that above (presumably at the Hallowe’en Ball in costume) Hazel and her cat almost appear to be transforming into or being overcome by demons as they eat and get fatter. Maybe the most literal portrayal of indulgence as sin I’ve ever seen in a picture book.

From "Hazel's Healthy Hallowe'en" by Kathryn Meyrick

I haven’t bought a copy of this book. And I can’t find a read-aloud on YouTube, so who knows, maybe her “giving herself the reward she’s been craving” at the end, as the synopsis says, is something that turns this whole terrifying charade on it’s head? Like saying fuck off to the “Health Farm” evangelizing fairy creep and flying off to kick ass and eat fruit in her baggy purple sack dress with her cute fat cat? I doubt it. But that’s what I’ll tell myself.