Module 8: James and the Giant Peach

Book Summary:  James' poor parents are eaten up by an angry rhinoceros right on the first page!  He is sent to live with his dreadful Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker where he leads a miserable life with no fun, no toys, no books, and no friends.  When he is 7 he is visited by a strange man who gives him a bag of magical crystals and in James' excitement he accidentally trips and spills the bag thinking that any hope of using the magic is gone.  The lone peach tree in the garden soaks up all of the magic along with the bugs that live in and around it.  The peach tree gives off one peach that continues to grow and grow.  James falls into the peach and is greeted by life size insects.  These insects know James and they feel sorry for him for what he has been going through with his awful aunts and they take James on the adventure of his lifetime.  James, his new friends and the giant peach cross the Atlantic, fly up into the clouds to discover what really goes on with the weather, and ends up getting stuck on the top of the Empire State Building.  James was able to leave his miserable life behind and make friends with these unlikely creatures.  They saved him from his horrible aunts and led him to a lifetime of happiness and friendship.

APA Reference:  Dahl, Roald.  (2007).  James and the giant peach.  New York, NY:  Puffin Books.

Impressions:  At first I was a bit weary of reading a book with insects as some of the main characters but I had heard really great things about this book and wanted to try it.  This was my first Dahl book and now I want to read them all.  I love the way he put this story together.  My absolute favorite sentence is sadly about James' parents but I love how lighthearted he writes about a serious subject:  "Then, one day, James’s mother and father went to London to do some shopping, and there a terrible thing happened. Both of them suddenly got eaten up (in full daylight, mind you, and on a crowded street) by an enormous angry rhinoceros which had escaped from the London Zoo."  This style of writing reminded me a lot of C.S. Lewis in the Narnia series.  I actually felt like I should be reading it in a British accent it was so formal and the wording was slightly different in some places.  Loved it.  I'm a sucker for happy endings and I felt that in about chapter 15-ish I was destined to get that happy ending.  I wanted desperately for James to get away from his awful aunts and was delighted to see them flattened by the peach.

Professional Review:  When poor James Henry Trotter loses his parents in a horrible rhinoceros accident, he is forced to live with his two wicked aunts, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. After three years he becomes "the saddest and loneliest boy you could find." Then one day, a wizened old man in a dark-green suit gives James a bag of magic crystals that promise to reverse his misery forever. When James accidentally spills the crystals on his aunts' withered peach tree, he sets the adventure in motion. From the old tree a single peach grows, and grows, and grows some more, until finally James climbs inside the giant fruit and rolls away from his despicable aunts to a whole new life. James befriends an assortment of hilarious characters, including Grasshopper, Earthworm, Miss Spider, and Centipede--each with his or her own song to sing. Roald Dahl's rich imagery and amusing characters ensure that parents will not tire of reading this classic aloud, which they will no doubt be called to do over and over again! With the addition of witty black and white pencil drawings by Lane Smith (of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs fame), upon which the animation for the Disney movie was based, this classic, now in paperback, is bursting with renewed vigor. We'll just come right out and say it: James and the Giant Peach is one of the finest children's books ever written. (Ages 9 to 12)

[Review of James and the giant peach].  Amazon.  Retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/James-Giant-Peach-Roald-Dahl/dp/0142410365

Library Uses:  I think this would great to encourage readers to do an author study.  Read this book, then Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc... and form a book club group to discuss similarities and differences.