James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach
by Roald Dahl

James and the Giant Peach
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Book Summary Information

Author: Roald Dahl
Illustrator: Lane Smith
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-04-26
ISBN: 0140374248
Number of pages: 144
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Publisher: Puffin
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Book Reviews of James and the Giant Peach

Book Review: Perfect Read-Aloud
Summary: 4 Stars

I had a love-hate relationship with Dahl and with fantasy and quirky books in general as a child. Choosing to listen to this (read very ably by Jeremy Irons) with Kate and Lexi at their formative ages was purposeful: I wanted to expose them to literature that is dark, silly, and fantastical all at the same time. With it's poetry and nonsense, levity and solemnity, James and the Giant Peach is memorable at the least, and I think that was my primary intent.

Listening as an adult, I enjoyed hearing the foreshadowing of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (when the peach rolls through the factory and everyone greedily eats their fill and it streams through the streets). There are some lovely imaginative solutions to basic "how things work" questions to delight any reader. The centipede still annoys me, but I appreciated the general "bugs are cool" vibe that this book exudes.

I was a little surprised at how much Kate (5 years, 4 months) comprehended. It's a difficult read, even as a read-aloud, and I will probably wait to revisit it with Lexi until she is a year or so older than Kate is now.

Summary of James and the Giant Peach

When magic touches an old peachtree, strange things start happening. A giant peach grows as large as a house, and when James crawls inside, the adventure begins. Lane Smith has created wonderful new illustrations based on the characters in the new full-length movie from Disney.
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)

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