It’s been an interesting month for us, mixing the end of school and beginning of summer with this, our fourth Roald Dahl book in less than 30 days. I wouldn’t quite say that his magical stories have made the catalyst for making our lives super scrumdiddlyumptious, but they sure add a flavor to our days that we might otherwise not have.
The journey began with The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More that I picked up for myself, though I also read a few stories aloud to the kids. We had been in the midst of The Fellowship of the Ring at the time as a family, so when I gave them the choice of more Tolkien or more Dahl, my kids (9 and 11) both joyously asked for Dahl!
We followed Henry Sugar with James and the Giant Peach while I read the more adult-focused Someone Like You on my own time, and we’ve loved just about everything we’ve read so far. It’s a wonderful habit for our family to have a good 30 minutes reading together each night (or in the morning, and if you haven’t started that yourself, there’s no time like the present, and there’s no author quite like Roald Dahl to get you started.
Like most Americans, my first experience with Charlie Bucket or the famous Willy Wonka came via the 1971 Gene Wilder film, which my family watched in the immediate wake of finishing this book. Man, that thing holds up! But this is supposed to be a review of the book not the film.
Still. That scene in the boat. Gene Wilder was a genius.
The book was very little changed when taken to the big screen, which made me quite happy. Lacking the intrigue of the everlasting gobstopper thievery and containing much longer (and much better) songs from the Oompa Loompas, the book otherwise formed specific images in my mind as I read—images both based on the film and not. And let me tell you, this book is made for reading aloud.
Veruca Salt was the easiest character to imitate (“I want it now!”), with Mike Teavee and Violet Beuregarde being pretty close seconds. I wasn’t confident in trying to imitate Gene Wilder (though I’m sure if “Help. Police. Murder.” were a line in the book, I’d have attempted it). The parents all got muddled in my voicing. Way too many on that initial tour!
This book is such an enjoyable trip that gleefully punishes the brats we all know (and the parents who’ve helped create them to be what they are): the screen addicts, the carelessly obese, the selfish screamers, and the greedy egoists. Only Charlie Bucket is a kind and loveable soul, and in that there exists the nut of the book’s lesson. It doesn’t matter your station in life: be kind to others and good things might very well happen.
I don’t know Roald Dahl’s religious affiliations, and there’s nothing in his writing to suggest he had any (many of his adult stories are quite dark). Still, as wildly silly as his plots might be, or as irreverent as his books can get about authority (killing James’ aunts for example, or the way Matilda reacts to her parents), there remain those nuggets of Truth that make for good discussions with the little ones. I’m happy for the wildness of it all and for how my kids respond and the conversations the stories spark. We’ll take a break from him sometime soon, I’m sure, but for now we’re truly enjoying our venture into the mind of Roald Dahl.
©2022 E.T.
Read More from Roald Dahl:
- Adult Short Stories:
Over to You (1946)
Someone Like You (1953)
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (1977) - Children Fiction:
James and the Giant Peach (1961)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
The Magic Finger (1964)
Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970)
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972)
Danny the Champion of the World (1975)
The Enormous Crocodile (1978)
The Twits (1980)
George’s Marvelous Medicine (1981)
The BFG (1982)
Dirty Beasts (1983)
Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984)
The Giraffe, the Pelly, and Me (1985)
Going Solo (1986)
Matilda (1988)
Esio Trot (1990)
The Minpins (1991)
The Vicar of Nibbleswicke (1991)