Time for Dahl

I didn’t forget about my Dahl reading challenge. I just got temporarily sidetracked by other things. On the bright side, the postponement improved the timing. You see, my husband, who picked up a bunch of Dahl books for me just the other day, says that September is Roald Dahl month (at our library, at least). That’s great. I’m glad I’m not the only one to be celebrating Dahl’s many wonderful children’s books at this time.

Last year, I started my reading challenge with The Gremlins: A Royal Air Force Story (The Lost Walt Disney Production). Next I read James and the Giant Peach, but I never sat down to write about it. Let me correct that oversight now. It was quite a while ago that I read it, but here’s what I remember

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Grade: A-

Orphan James is miserable living with his abusive aunts. Then a mysterious stranger hands him a bag of magic crystals. When James accidentally spills the crystals on the ground, their magic seeps into the living things in the soil, including an old peach tree. A giant peach grows from the tree. The peach is big enough for James to crawl inside, and so begins his amazing adventure.

I liked James and the Giant Peach a lot. It’s fun and inventive, but like most of the Dahl books I’ve read so far, it’s not the least bit believable. That’s not a problem per se, but given the kind of reader I am, it means Dahl’s books have to work harder to win me over. So far, they’ve all had characters or other features that compensated for their lack of believability. So I’ll keep on reading them. Next up is The Magic Finger.