We’ve dwindled down nearly to the bottom of the Roald Dahl Barrel in our attempt to read through all of his books. Well, that is, all of his children’s books. My kids will have to wait until they’re adults and beyond before they’ll allowed to read his books not made for kids (i.e. Someone Like You)!
The Enormous Crocodile was harder for me to find, and I guess I can tell why after having read it to my kids. It’s perhaps the dumbest of all his books. I don’t mean it in the sense that the silly story for kids doesn’t make sense, but that it’s not up to par that we’d expect from Roald Dahl. It’s too predictable. The names are too silly. The plot too terribly childish, not in the fun sense of “everyone’s a child at heart” that marks all of Dahl’s other kids’ books, but in the “this book is for toddlers” sense. I don’t think any of his other books dip as low on the intellectual scale as this one.
The story follows an enormous crocodile who gets a hankering for yummy, yummy kids. He wants to eat a fat, juicy kid, and he’s willing to leave the swamp, head into town, and use his secret plans and clever tricks to get one (or a half-dozen). His plans always include hiding in plain sight so that kids will be tempted to climb on him, so he can, with just a quick turn of his neck and snap of his jaws, gobble them right up.
Some of the other characters we meet in this book have the following Dr. Seuss-esque names: Humpy-rumpy Hippopotamus, Trunky the Elephant, Muggle-Wump the Monkey, and the Roly-Poly Bird. Now it probably takes a genius (or something) to make up catchy names that stick, but seriously, “Trunky the Elephant”? Not the normal, genius product we’d expect from Roald Dahl!
This books was actually so forgettable when I first read it to my kids that I had to go back and read it again just to remind myself of how bad it was—not because the temptation was so strong, but because I needed the refresher in order to review it honestly.
We’ve loved just about everything that Roald Dahl has produced, so it was inevitable (I suppose) that we’d come across one or two books that proved unfinishable. I’m just surprised that it’s one of his later books that did us in! Give us Danny the Champion of the World or Going Solo again, and we’d be thrilled. Give me one more story as childish as The Enormous Crocodile, and I’d be tempted to give up our quest.
©2023 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)