Book Report # 2
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James and the Giant Peach
Author: Roald Dahl
Illustrated By:Quentin Blake
 
 
Published By: the Penguin Group 
Date of Publication: 2001

giantpeach.jpg

 
Setting
 
Where and when the story takes place
 
            The story began in 1961 in the house that James Henry Trotter and his parents peacefully and happily lived in until James was four years old. This house was beautiful. It was located beside the sea. There was a sandy beach for James and the other children to run about on and the ocean was perfect for James to paddle in.

 

            One day when James was four years old, he suddenly became an orphan. He was sent to live with his aunts. The aunts’ house was where the story mainly took place. It was a queer ramshackle house on the top of a high hill in the south of England. The hill was so high that from anywhere in the garden, James could see for miles and miles very clearly. Inside the house was bare and plain. James’ room was as bare as a prison cell. His aunts treated him very poorly, so he wanted to escape.

 

Three years later, James by chance discovered a secret entranceway to a fruit. It was a peach that was the size of a house. The inside of the peach was gooey, tasty, and had a fresh scent of peach. Finally James found a place that belonged to him. He lived in the peach house for the rest of his life.

 

In the end of the story, the peach rolled away and took James on an unforgettable adventure. They passed by many interesting places such as the English Channel and a church steeple. They crossed the Atlantic Ocean, passed fifty states, and finally reached New York City.

 

 

Characters

 

James Henry Trotter

James is the main character in the story. He is my favourite character too. He has short, straight yellow coloured hair. He is very skinny. James is a creative, sensitive, and helpful boy. He is also very brave, playful, smart, and curious. His nationality is British, so he speaks English. James is an orphan, so he lives with his two nasty aunts. They made poor James do many chores. It is his dream to someday visit New York City and climb to the top of the Empire State Building.

 

Aunt Spiker

Aunt Spiker is one of the two antagonists in the story. She is lean, tall, and bony. She wears steel-rimmed spectacles that fixes onto the end of her nose with a clip. Aunt Spiker has a screeching voice and long wet narrow lips. She is one of James’ aunts. Aunt Spiker is also very evil and cruel to James. She is very greedy and lazy. She is very selfish as well.

 

Aunt Sponge

Aunt Sponge is the other antagonist in the story. She is enormously fat and very short. Aunt Sponge has small piggy eyes, a sunken mouth, and a white flabby face that looks exactly as though it had been boiled. She looks like a great white soggy over boiled cabbage. Aunt Sponge is the other one of James’ aunts. She treats James meanly. Aunt Sponge loves to eat. She is very lazy and greedy as well. She is the character I dislike the most.

 

 

Synopsis

 

            James Henry Trotter lived happily and peacefully with his parents in a beautiful house by the seaside until James was four years old.

 

            Then, one day, James’ parents went to London to do some shopping and there a terrible thing happened to them. They got eaten up by an enormous angry rhinoceros which had escaped from the London Zoo. Poor James became an orphan. He found himself alone and frightened in a vast unfriendly world. The lovely house had to be sold and the little boy carrying nothing, but a small suitcase containing only a pair of pajamas and a toothbrush, was sent away to live with his two aunts. Their names were Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge. They treated James poorly and made him do a lot of housework. James was not allowed to go past the fence in the garden and if he did, he would have to stay in a room full of rats for a night.

 

Three whole years passed, on a hot summer day, something rather peculiar happened when James was hiding from his two aunts behind a bush. He met an old man who gave him a bag of one thousand glowing magic crystals. The old man told James to eat it all up and then he would never feel miserable again. On the way back, James dropped the magic crystals near the peach tree in the garden. After a while, a peach started growing larger and larger on the peach tree that never grows peaches. Before long, the peach was as big as a house. The news of the peach spread like wildfire across the countryside. When the visitors came, the two greedy aunts started charging everyone for coming in.

 

That night when James was cleaning up the trash left behind by the visitors, he discovered a secret entranceway into the peach and when he crawled inside, he met a bunch of oversized bug friends. They were an Old-Green-Grasshopper, an enormous spider, a giant ladybug, a centipede, an earthworm, glowworm, and a silkworm. The next morning when the two aunts were outside ready to make a fortune, they saw the peach rolling down the hill. The peach rolled James away from his despicable aunts to a whole new life.

 

The peach took them on an unforgettable adventure. On their journey, they experienced many dangers such as the sharks eating the peach after it rolled into the ocean. James and the bugs worked together as a team to free the peach. They captured 100 seagulls to lift the peach into the sky and continued their voyage. James and his friends went through some other hazards and overcame all of them. They passed by many interesting places as well before they reached New York City. It was hilarious that the peach actually landed on the top spike of the Empire State Building. James realized his dream.

 

Now the peach is a statue in Central Park. Only the peach stone (the brown seed) was left. Did you know a famous person lived in this seed? It was James Henry Trotter himself. From the saddest and loneliest boy, James now became the boy with all the friends and playmates in the world.

 

 

Opinions

 

I like reading books written by Roald Dahl. James and the Giant Peach is one of them. The title is quite catchy and the tale is awesome. The illustrations by Quentin Blake are fantastic because his scribble style fits Dahl's tales perfectly. This great story from 1961 includes all of its hilarious magic and imaginary power. This fanciful book's old-fashioned style and content almost feels as if it were written at the time of the 19th Century. The book holds loads of details that make it interesting and worthy of the Newberry Award that it earned. James and the Giant Peach is a fast read book that all most everyone enjoys.

 

Some parts in the story are quite sad and awful, so I shivered and I trembled. I cheered when James finally escaped from his two cruel aunts in the peach. Personally, I think the Harry Potter books are very similar to James and the Giant Peach. That's probably why I love the Harry Potter books as well. The Dursleys are just like Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. Harry is just like poor James before he's rescued by the man with the magic worms. Harry and James are both orphans. If you've gotten a Potter head that is waiting for the next novel, try reading the original Dahl books. You’ll be glad that you didn’t wait that long without reading a book.

 

James and the Giant Peach is one of the greatest books I read. I give it a rating of five stars because it is so unbelievably good. James and the Giant Peach is a wonderful story for readers age 9 -12. Children will love this book, and all of Roald Dahl's other stories. Adults shouldn't let the kids have all the fun. They should read it, too. You'll never look at a peach the same way again. I highly recommend this book!

 

 

Miscellaneous

 

The other books written by Roald Dahl:

1.     The BFG

Illustrated by Quentin Blake. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982.
Sophie is saved by the BFG and finds herself in a strange environment.

 

2.   Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Illustrated by Joseph Schindelman. Knopf, 1964.

Charlie and four of his less than wonderful friends tour on extraordinary chocolate factory. They all meet with disaster except for Charlie.

 

3.     Danny, the Champion of the World

Illustrated by Jill Bennett. Knopf, 1975.
Dad helps Danny try to save the birds of the woods before Mr. Hazell's shooting party.

 

4.   The Magic Finger 

Illustrated by William Pene Du Bois. HarperCollins, 1966.
When her neighbors shoot and kill animals, a little girl uses her "magic finger."

 

5.    Matilda

Illustrated by Quentin Blake. Viking-Kestral, 1988.
Genius Matilda rids her school of mean headmistress Trunchbull.

 

6.   The Witches

Illustrated by Quentin Blake. Farrar, 1983.
A boy and his grandmamma save English children from being turned into mice by witches.

 

The titles of other books similar to James and the Giant Peach:

1.     A Series of Unfortunate Events (Book 1-12) – by Lemony Snicket

2.     Harry Potter (Book 1-6) – by J.K.Rowling

3.     The Boxcar Children – by Gertrude Chandler Warner

 

Illustration of the Author Roald Dahl:

roald_dahl.jpg
Author: Roald Dahl

 
 
Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff, South Wales on September 13th 1916. He went to Repton school, in Derbyshire, and left school in 1933. His first job was in Africa, with the Shell Oil Company. In the second world war he fought as a fighter pilot, and was badly injured when his plane crashed. After the war he worked in America, and soon started writing stories. His very first children's book, written in 1943 was called The Gremlins. Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the President of the USA liked it so much he was invited to the White House and became friends with the President, Franklin D Roosevelt. From 1945 until his death, he lived at Gipsy House, in Buckinghamshire, where he wrote his famous children's books. He died in hospital in Oxford, on November 23rd, 1990.

Roald Dahl was very big. He was tall, even though he stooped as he got older. He really did look like a Big Friendly Giant. He was not a snappy dresser. He loved to wear bright coloured trousers, often red, and sandals, and lamb's wool cardigans which nearly always had large holes in the elbows!
 
Roald Dahl's Hobbies
Roald Dahl had lots of hobbies - apart from writing! He loved food and wine, and collected French wine, as well as drinking it. He liked gardening, and he specialised in growing enormous onions. He was crazy about sport, in fact it was about the only thing he watched on TV. He especially loved snooker, horse racing, rugby and football. He also loved to listen to classical music, but at home.
 
 
 

Illustration of scenes from the book:

james01.jpg
This is a picture of James' aunts' house.

james02.jpg
This is a scene of the old man giving James the bag of magic crystals.

james03.jpg
This is a picture of visitors coming to see the giant peach.

james04.jpg
This is a scene of James and his bug friends on the flying peach.

james05.jpg
This is a picture of James telling playmates the adventure outside the peach house.