James and the Giant Peach (1961)

The last time I read this book, I was in elementary school.... so give or take 20 years ago. For Christmas, I got my boys a Roald Dahl collection due to the wonderful memories I had as a kid.

Reading this outloud was a wonderful and cherishing experience with my kids. They loved the adventure, the characters, and the giant peach. My oldest (who is seven and thinks that it's against physics for seagulls to fly the peach) begged me to read the last 10 chapters in one go. A great story to read again as an adult. There are a few "ass" spoken from the Centipede, but we all know he a pest. It fits with his character. So keep that in mind if you have qualms of language in children's novels.

Once finished, I told them that there was a movie of the novel. The light in their eyes was blindingly bright. Tomorrow, we'll watch the wonderful rendition Tim Burton did of the novel. I'm so excited to start the next book to them: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. ( )

I loved this book when my dad read it to me. And then I grew up and read it myself and HOLY CRAP, ROALD DAHL WAS INSANE. There are giant bugs! It was so gross. And the cloud people, they were scary. ( )

I re-read this via the read-a-long with Taika Waititi (and friends) on YouTube. It's not my favourite Roald Dahl book but the different actors reading it made it a lot more fun than I remember. It's still best as a stop-motion animated film though. ( )

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I only give this book a 3 because most of Dahl's other works are brilliant, whereas this one is only very good. It's all relative, isn't it?

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