Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Roald Dahl
Charlie is a little boy starving to death, with delicious chocolate smells assaulting him every time he walks to school. With four grandparents to support, and only one toothpaste-lid-tube-tightening father, it seems like things will never look up. But as we all know, Charlie is going to have the experience of his life inside Mr Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
So you’ve seen the movie six dozen times (or maybe seven dozen, if you’re my age and it played on the weekend TV every week). But the book is the best, and the two movies don’t do justice to Roald Dahl’s world. Something that this novel has over the films is that you get to see illustrations of the four other children after they have been returned to their approximate original selves.
I own this in both a larger, modern size (pictured) with illustration, and an older, dirty copy. The older dirty copy is the one I read as a child, and it shows it. After finishing this novel I was told by my listeners that they needed to hear the second book immediately. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find a copy of it Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. From what I remember, it’s a bit of an odd book, so I don’t expect them to love it as much as the first.
How could this not be 5 stars? It’s a classic, and a proper should-be-loved-by-all-people-classic at that. None of that Jane Austin business, Roald Dahl is where it is at.
