I have never read Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator so I decided to re-read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory before plunging in. I haven't actually read this in my ADULT life either.

There is no real need for a review here. Everyone knows about the Buckets, Veruca Salt, Augustus Gloop, Mike Teavee, Violet Beauregarde, Willy Wonka, and the Oompa-Loompas.

The real surprise (for me) is that I can't give this a 5-star review because simply, for one of the first times in my life I can say that the movie is better. I'm talking about the original with Gene Wilder, not that mess with Johnny Depp. Don't get me wrong, the book is great, but the movie had more to it. To show a point, there are just 100 pages between entering the chocolate factory and Charlie leaving. It felt just a bit rushed compared to the movie.

Disappointing that some of the movie scenes aren't actually in the text. Snodgrass does not bail up Charlie and ask for the recipe to the Everlasting Gobstopper. There are no geese laying golden eggs, Charlie and Grandpa never get close to being beheaded by an exhaust fan after stealing drinks, and the scene where Charlie returns the Gobstopper to an angry Willy Wonka towards the end of the movie is not required. I may been seen here as being too critical but this movie is still a favourite.

However, as I said before, this is still a great book and one that any parent should read to their kids to encourage a vivid imagination. My copy has the awesome illustrations by Quentin Blake.

P.S The Oompa-Loompas are smaller and different in appearance to those of the movie.

Not every story has the ability to give the same excitement when one re-reads a book of his childhood. But Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is one of those pleasant exceptions to this. Loved reading the book again.

Also loved this poem/ prose about TV: (only certain parts of it are posted)

"The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set -
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic Thing at all..

IT ROTS THE SENSES IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CAN NOT THINK - HE ONLY SEES!

'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children! Please explain!'

THEY.. USED... TO... READ! They'd
READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
TO READ some more.

Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall."

Amore per il cioccolato

Il permissivismo sempre più dilagante da parte dei genitori costruisce veri e propri mostri, difettati nella sensibilità e scarsi di comprendonio: l'umiltà e la generosità pagano sempre.
L'idea della fabbrica è un pretesto, incredibilmente suggestivo, sulla quale l'autore costruisce la semplice e importante morale di fondo.

proof that not all contests are rigged... just those that are not run by magic chocolate factories...

One of the first books I ever read. I wanted to watch the movie, but wasn't allowed to until I read the book. And so I did. And now, every few years, I want to again. It's been a long time. But who doesn't love chocolate and dreams and wishes and gifts? I think I may read this series... only looked at the first one.

FYI - Wrote this review ~2017 from memory as I want to have a review for everything I remember reading. If I messed it up, let me know! LOL :)

Questo libro è uno dei libri più belli che io abbia mai letto.
Può sembrare una semplice storia per bambini e, in parte, lo è, ma per me è anche molto, ma molto di più. Questa storia ci insegna l'importanza della gentilezza, della famiglia, della perseveranza e di talmente tante altre cose che mi è davvero difficile elencarle tutte. E' un libro magico, intenso e divertente che mi ha accompagnato parecchie volte nel corso della mia vita essendo una delle mie riletture preferite.
Vorrei aver letto questo libro quando ero piccina, ma anche con un occhio più adulto posso dire che il mondo creato da Roald Dahl mi ha incantato e, nell'arco della storia, non avevo più la mia età, ma 8/9 anni e gli occhi che brillavano a furia di immaginare tutte quelle meraviglie! Ogni volta che lo rileggo torno indietro nel tempo e penso che questa sia una cosa davvero bellissima. Consigliatissimo!

If you ever want to cheer yourself up, go back and read a book you loved and read over and over as a child. For me, this is one book that will always be better than any movie they make from it. Nothing Hollywood does with special effects will ever be as magical as what Roald Dahl did with just plain old words.

It has been MANY long years since I last looked at this book, but it all came back to me as soon as I turned to the first page and saw the illustrations. I was immediately carried away by the story. Even though I already knew how everything would turn out, I found myself rooting for Charlie Bucket to find one of the five Golden Tickets. And yes, I watched gleefully as the naughty kids paid for their bad behavior.

I love the chants the Oompa-Loompas do after each bad kid gets his or her comeuppance. These guys are the original rappers! My mind was showing me hundreds of itty-bitty Oompa-Loompas in the background doing wild synchronized hip-hop moves while chanting to a rapper rhythm:
"Augustus Gloop! Augustus Gloop!
The great big greedy nincompoop!
How long could we allow this beast
To gorge and guzzle, feed and feast
On everything he wanted to?
Great Scott! It simply wouldn't do!"

I've always loved to play with our English words that have more than one meaning, so passages like the one below tickle me pink (or pickle me tink, if you are The BFG):

They streaked past a black door. STOREROOM NUMBER 71, it said on it. WHIPS--ALL SHAPES AND SIZES.
"Whips!" cried Veruca Salt. "What on earth do you use whips for?"
"For whipping cream, of course," said Mr. Wonka. "How can you whip cream without whips? Whipped cream isn't whipped cream at all unless it's been whipped with whips. Just as a poached egg isn't a poached egg unless it's been stolen from the woods in the dead of night!"

There's a sinister undercurrent in the book that I missed completely when I was a kid. I can just see Mr. Dahl chortling to himself when he wrote some of this stuff. Heh heh, that little bit about the whips oughta give the grownups a little hitch in their ho-hum.
But everything comes out happy in the end. Even the naughty kids still get their lifetime supply of Willy Wonka's DELICIOUS EATABLES. Not to mention a nasty case of diabetes after a few years of indulgence.

Charlie and his family were very poor. They lived in a tiny cottage and there were seven of them. Charlie, his parents, Mr and Mrs Bucket, plus Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine, and Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina. It was a tight fit but they didn’t mind. Every day Charlie went off to school with hunger gnawing in his tummy.

When Willy Wonka decided to give away 5 Golden Tickets all hidden in his chocolates and five children were the winners, they all descended on the factory with their parents – Charlie had Grandpa Joe with him. And what an adventure they had. What would happen in that magical factory? You’ll have to read the book to find out

The movie always fascinated me--both as a kid and adult--so I was really eager to jump into this and see if I could figure it out. But dude, i'm still stumped. I'm not sure if Willy Wonka is supposed to be mad, a genius, or a mad genius. There's just so many priceless lines of dialogue that the movies also captured so well, and this book is so whimsical and wholesome, yet dark with sort of a fable-esque message about greed and whatnot from the Oompa-Loompa's songs/poems.

I took a star off because of shaky footing with the portrayal of certain features in this book, such as recurring fatphobia (also present in his other books), and the weird savior portrayal of Wonka in relation to his using Oompa-Loompas basically as slave labor in exchange for food and not much else. Maybe i'm reading too far into it, but it seems like a very unethical capitalistic scheme and instead of seeing Oompa-Loompas as people eager to make some chocolate, they seemed rather treated as inferior. (This is definitely not something 10-year old me picked up on as a child, but I can't unsee it, nonetheless)

When I read this book as a child I was so immersed in the story my imagination was broadened. How exciting to find a golden ticket and gain access as a VIP in Willy Wanka's mysterious chocolate factory. Brilliant. The original film with Gene Wilder is a classic. In my opinion far better than the remake with Johnny Depp. I like Johnny Depp he is an amazing actor but Gene Wilder was Willy Wanka in my book. I often wonder about the names of these characters. Did Roald Dahl have a twinkle in his eye when he named him Willy Wanka? Over here in the UK it sounds like the word Wanker which, really means a long Walker. To have a wank is to go for a long walk. However we all know what a Wanker is in colloquial terms...and his name is Willy! Lol! Did Dahl have a smirk when he created him? Over here in the UK we had a cartoon that used to be on in the afternoon called Captain Pugwash. I used to watch it when I came home from school, it was great. Some of the characters names were 'master bates'. And 'seaman stains'. The show ran for years before the dark suits cottoned on to the hidden pun. So funny that hundreds of thousands of children were laughing about it at school, the show inevitability got cancelled. Also the cartoon Magic Roundabout. Dylan was always stoned and played the banjo. Lol! Dougal who was addicted to sugar cubes; LSD springs to mind; and he used to run around in circles. Ermintrude if I remember was a cow that flew. It was hilarious and as children we lapped it up. The creaters were university graduates and they basically took the piss out of the powers that be. Anyhow Roald Dahl books are fantastic and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory is up there with his best. The original film is well worth the watch too.

A children's fantasy adventure tale that speaks to the power of the imagination. Why it took me until my mid-twenties to read this is beyond me—as a kid, this would have been an obsession of mine if I had actually been introduced to it at the time.

Roald Dahl's tale seems to be perfect for that age where the magic of fantastical childhood stories might begin to wane. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory bubbles over with creativity and fantasia, appealing to the vivid imagery forming in the reader's mind. I have read few authors so extraordinarily talented at creating an image with few words: Dahl passes on the feeling as though you were inside this chocolate factory, as though it was you he was showing around, as though it was you who had won the Golden Ticket.

The terrifying ideas of Willy Wonka's eccentric actions are wrapped in humor: the cruelty of Wonka's indifference never truly sinks in as the fates of these four horrible children who accompany Charlie on the factory tour seem earned, until Roald Dahl reminds his reader that the fault must not be looked for in the children, but rather in their parents who spoiled them and never taught them to act any differently. Inside this fantastical odyssey through the imagination, Dahl hides a morality tale with a lesson that deserves to be learned by parents and children alike.

Personally, I am still not quite sure whether Charlie and the Chocolate Factory stands out as my favorite Dahl story—my soft spot belongs to Fantastic Mr. Fox and Matilda, and even though I have not read it, my immense enjoyment of the 1990 film The Witches makes me believe that one would rank highly as well. But it's a great children's adventure, regardless—a very fast-paced read, vividly written and one that truly gets your imagination senses working.

I really wish classics like this would have aged better. This one has plenty of great ideas, though it relies on Roald Dahl's usual lazy writing: way too much dialogue, tons of exposition and action all jammed into the dialogue, a boringly wandering point of view, not enough focus on the main character. Plus, there are so many weird glossed-over racist depictions of the Oomaloompas and how they're treated as test subjects for Wonka's experiments (a few of them die!!) but they're supposedly somehow grateful to live in factory hell. What a bummer. Once again, I had to skip over all kinds of nasty sentences about evil fat people so I wouldn't accidentally poison the kids during storytime.

Hey but there are the great moments you remember. There are some great descriptions of terrible things happening to these kids that Roald Dahl hates ("Violet, you're turning violet, Violet!"). And there are a lot of little things that the movie clearly improved. In the book, Wonka snaps his fingers to summon the Oomaloompas. Boring. That strange little flute in the movie was way better. In the book, they skip right by the floating soda room. Way better to have Charlie and Grandpa Joe go in and almost die before they figure out how to burp themselves to safety. In the book, the Oompaloompas sing WAY too long boring judgey moralistic songs without any tune or meter. The movie song was iconic (though still unnecessarily judgey.)

The one place that this book absolutely works is in the opening chapters. The opening of this book is HARROWING. Charlie and his family are starving to death. Charlie only gets one bar of chocolate a year on his birthday but he tries to share it with his family because he loves them so much. There's a closeness we get to him as he slowly walks to school, trying to save energy in the winter, even as he only eats half a boiled potato a day... Then that all changes when he finds the golden ticket and we lose focus on Charlie almost completely in favor of the large group of people following Wonka. I mean, I get it. The factory itself is super interesting, and I wanted to know what was in each room. But it would've been better if we had stuck with Charlie.

Anyway, yeah, the classics haven't aged well. It's really too bad. There are some glimmers of greatness here, but overall, I am disappointed by Roald Dahl yet again.