94. JAMES and the GIANT PEACH

Roald Dahl 1961

In this delightful children's book, James Henry Trotter is an orphan neglected and abused by his cruel Aunts Sponge and Spiker. When a stranger gives him a thousand little green things that were supposed to change his life, he accidentally spills them in the garden and a giant peach soon emerges. Inside this giant peach are the wonderful characters he meets: a Centipede,a grasshopper, a spider, a ladybug, a silkworm and an earthworm. And together, they roll off the hill to sail and fly away into the most fabulous adventure of their life.

'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.'(1)

'"One thousand long slimy crocodile tongues boiled up in the skull of a dead witch for twenty days and nights with the eyeballs of a lizard! Add the fingers of a young monkey, the gizzard of a pig, the beak of a green parrot, the juice of a porcupine, and three spoonfuls of sugar. Stew for another week, and then let the moon do the rest!"(9)

"Whoever they meet first, be it bug, insect, animal, or tree, that will be the one who gets the full power of their magic! So hold the bag tight! Don't tear the paper! Off you go! Hurry up! Don't wait! Now's the time! Hurry!"(11)

'The two women and the small boy stood absolutely still on the grass underneath the tree, gazing up at this extraordinary fruit. James's little face was glowing with excitement, his eyes were as big and bright as two stars. He could see the peach swelling larger and larger as clearly as if it were a balloon being blown up.'(16)

'Something else, he told himself, something stranger than ever this time, is about to happen to me again soon. He was sure of it. He could feel it coming.'(23)

'So what would you call it if you saw a grasshopper as large as a dog? As large as a large dog? You could hardly call that an insect, could you?'(26)

'A few minutes later, Miss Spider had made the first bed. It was hanging from the ceiling, suspended by a rope of threads at either end so that actually it looked more like a hammock than a bed. But it was a magnificent affair, and the stuff that it was made of shimmered like silk in the pale light.'(31)

'Poor earthworm," the Ladybug said, whispering in James's ear. "He loves to make everything into a disaster. He hates to be happy. He is only happy when he is gloomy. Now isn't that odd? But then, I suppose just being an Earthworm is enough to make a person pretty gloomy, don't you agree?"(49)

"For dinner on my birthday shall I tell you what I chose:
Hot noodles made from poodles on a slice of garden hose--
And a rather smelly jelly
Made of armadillo's toes.
(The jelly is delicious, but you have to hold your nose.)"(53)

'And now came the big moment. Quickly, the five hundred and second seagull was caught and harnessed to the peach stem...
And then suddenly...
But slowly...
Majestically...
Like some fabulous golden balloon...
With all the seagulls straining at the strings above...'(66)

"If you want to know, I happen to be a 'short-horned' grasshopper. I have two short feelers coming out of my head. Can you see them? There they are. They are quite short, arent' they? That's why they call me a 'short-horn'. And we 'short-horns' are the only ones who play our music in the violin style, using a bow. My 'long-horned' relatives, the ones who have long feelers coming out of their heads, make their music simply by rubbing the edges of their two top wings together. They are not violinists, they are wing-rubbers."(72)

a Puffin Book
119 pages
Book owned