James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake is a great book if you want to be entertained, or are starting to read chapter books. This book, published in 1961, is one of the most famous books worldwide to this day. It is a fictional-fantasy story and has a child-friendly plot. I would say the book is good for anyone from 8 to 14 years old.
James and the Giant Peach is a very descriptive book and makes it easy to imagine the scenes. This story starts off in London, England, in the countryside in James’s aunt’s house. Later on, James meets bugs inside the peach. The peach then ends up in the Atlantic Ocean and arrives in America.
James is the protagonist. His friends are giant bugs named Old-Green-Grasshopper, Centipede, Earthworm, Spider, and Ladybug. Although these bugs can be impatient, they cooperate with James and are friendly to him.
James is a curious orphan who was trapped with his cruel aunts for many years. One day, his aunts went to their garden and found an enormous peach on one of the trees. The aunts locked him outside of the house for some time as punishment, and that's when he spotted the giant peach. He examined the peach and found a big hole. Big enough for James to fit in it. He stepped into the hole and found the seed of the peach. The seed of the peach opened. James went inside where he met his future friends. Unfortunately, not after long, the peach started rolling, and rolling, and rolling. And that’s how his adventure begins.
James and the Giant Peach is filled with descriptive scenes and vivid words like “hurtled” or “plunged” which makes the book fun to read. It is very easy to imagine and feels like you're in the story itself. This novel is similar to other Roald Dahl books such as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Both books are easy to picture and have fun words in them such as “scrumptious”, “delectable”, or “enraptured”. The common theme can be that karma comes around.
Even though James was treated poorly by his aunts, he doesn’t become bitter or mean spirited. He still helped out the bugs. This shows that you can help out people and make friends even when it seems like you can’t. The theme of James and the Giant Peach relates to my life when I switched schools in fifth grade. I thought I wouldn’t be able to make friends or have fun. Soon someone did end up making friends with me, and then I had hope about making more friends. In just a little bit of time, I was having a lot of fun during recess and had many friends.
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Popular Highlights in this book
“I think you’d make,” Aunt Spiker said, “a lovely Frankenstein.”Highlighted by 502 Kindle readers- “There’s more power and magic in those things in there than in all the rest of the world put together,”Highlighted by 498 Kindle readers
- “I’d rather be fried alive and eaten by a Mexican!” wailed the Old-Green-Grasshopper.Highlighted by 457 Kindle readers
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Review of Hardcover Edition 978-0425287651
James and the Giant Peach: 978-0425287651The book's dust-jacket is quite attractive: nice art and lovely colors on mid-weight laminated paper.The book itself, however (the one I received), looks like a paperback book that had been badly glued onto a hard cover: there is excess glue on the bottom part of the spine (some pages are stuck together), but not enough glue at the top (front) end paper (see photos).The text is printed in peach (on a natural-colored paper), so the contrast isn't great, but I actually don't mind it much -- had they used a smoother, brighter-white paper (vs. what feels like a thicker recycled paper) and better quality printing, the peach text would be less of an issue.Overall, it is a bit disappointing. The best part of this edition is that it is hardcover, and the dust jacket is quite nice.
Top reviews from other countries
Andrew Lugg
An amazing trip through the imagination
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2024Susan
Very nice but printed in orange ink
Reviewed in Spain on February 18, 2021
Susan
Reviewed in Spain on February 18, 2021
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