James and the Giant Peach

by Roald Dahl and Lucy Dahl

Book Overview

From the bestselling author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG! Roald Dahl was a champion of the underdog and all things little--in this case, an orphaned boy oppressed by two nasty, self-centered aunts. How James escapes his miserable life with the horrible aunts and becomes a hero is a Dahlicious fantasy of the highest order. You will never forget resourceful little James and his new family of magically overgrown insects--a ladybug,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140374248
• ISBN13: 9780140374247
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 7.6"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

Swears

This book swears. Not exactly the language I want my kids learning.

Jeremy Irons makes a great story even more fun!

I can now never hear/think of the word "blossom" without imagining Jeremy Iron's voice from this CD and giggling.

James and the Giant Peach

This is a fabulous book my 4th grade teacher read to us after lunch recess. She would read us a chapter a day. Now as a mother I'm reading it to my son who is 7. He is so into it! I'm excited because his love for books and reading is growing by leaps and bounds :)

Imaginative, funny, a great read!

Wonderful, fantastical adventure of a boy and his friends in a giant peach. Roald Dahl has written quite a number of books, and some of them are really more suited for older readers, due to difficulty of language and story theme. But this one I would definitely recommend as a first Roald Dahl book; suitable for all ages. In fact, I liked this even better than "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

4 1/2* Old-Fashioned Dickensian Fun

(I am reviewing the 1988 Windrush large print version of the original 1961 book by Dahl. Illustrations are by Michel Simeon.) This fanciful book's old-fashioned style and content almost feels as if it were written at the turn of the 19th Century, and the James' initial misery recalls Dickens. The writing's rough edges make it seem more like a personal story, rather than the product of some anonymous conglomerate.Unfortunately, the beginning of the book (where James magically escapes from his aunts) seems contrived, the aunts are unbelievably cruel, and the writing is somehow flat. However, the book picks up after James and his newfound insect friends escape via a magic peach. The bantering and arguing insect personalities are reminiscent of those in "Winnie the Pooh" and "The Wizard of Oz." (The feuding Centipede and Worm are a bit like emotionally labile Tigger and pessimistic Eeyore; the "LadyBird" plays a role similar to the Scarecrow.) The insects' squabbling and fear is balanced by James' good-hearted and well-reasoned actions that save them from sharks, the angry "Cloud People" (who throw hail, water, and rainbow-making paint at them), and the fearful citizens of New York City. Dahl has lots of word play ("Oh, just look at the vermicious gruesome face!"), and songs done in a kind of "Alice of Wonderland" meets Broadway style: "I've eaten many strange and scrumptious dishes in my time, Like jellied gnats and dandyprats and earwigs cooked in slime, And mice with rice-they're really nice/When roasted in their prime. (But don't forget to sprinkle them with just a pinch of grime.)" As you can see, the humor (and some of Michel Simeon's illustrations for the 1988 edition) is sometimes fun-gothic, and the demise of the aunts is not like that pictured in the movie based on the book (They get run over by the peach.) Overall, however, and despite its slow beginning, the book is stylish and lots of fun.