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

این کتاب یه روز خیلی گرم تابستونی وقتی کلاس سوم یا چهارممو تموم کرده بودم از کانون پرورشی فکری بندر ترکمن گرفتم. با اینکه بندرترکمن الانم به زور شهر محسوب میشه ولی یادمه کانونش اون موقع مجهز و خوب بود. یادمه اون موقع ها همش به مسوولهای کانون میگفتم که بهم کتاب بدون عکس معرفی کنید ولی مسوولهای کانون تقریبا هیچکدومشون اهل کتاب به اون شکل نبودن و کارشون فقط یه جور شغل بود و برای همین بیشتر همون کتابهای عکس دار رو بهم میدادن. خلاصه من برای اینکه هردفعه کتاب خوب پیدا کنم ساعتها بین قفسه های کتابهای بخش نوجوان میگشتم و یه بار اتفاقی این کتابو پیدا کردم. یادمه وقتی اومدم خونه لباسهامو درنیاوردم و رفتن توی اتاقم و به پشتی ایستاده تکیه دادم و همشو یه نفس خوندم. اصلا باورم نمیشد یه کتاب میتونه اینقدر قشنگ باشه. یادمه تمامی جزییاتی که توصیف میکرد رو توی ذهنم تصور میکردم و تا سالها بعد یا حتی ذهنم هم خیلی اون جزییات توی ذهنم هست.
راستی امسال که رفتم ایران رفتم کانون سر زدم، هنوزم باز بود ولی خیلی محقرتر از قبل شده بود. باورم نمیشد که حتی خیلی از کتابهاشون همون قدیمیها بود و کتابهای خوبشون هم انگار همه رفته بود. انگار نه انگار که بیشتر از بیست سال گذشته بود.

Charlie Bucket lives in a little cottage right on the edge of the town with his parents and his maternal and paternal grandparents. They are very poor and don't have enough to eat but they get by on the meagre meals. Charlie loves chocolate but he only gets it on his birthday and savors it as much as he can. He lives in the same town as the famous chocolate factory and his grandpa Joe tells him the story of when the factory was open to workers and how Mr. Willy Wonka came up with so many different and delicious recipes for sweets but then spies from all over came to the factory and stole the recipes and then Mr. Willy Wonka shut the gates of the factory to the workers but he still produces and sells chocolate.

There's an announcement from Mr. Willy Wonka that he has put five golden tickets in his chocolate bars and then founders will be given a special admittance and tour of the factory. Charlie is hopeful when his family gets him a chocolate bar on his birthday but he doesn't find the golden ticket. Charlie finds money outside and he buys two chocolates and finds the fifth and the last golden ticket and he arrives with his grandpa Joe to the gates of the factory for the special tour.

Mr. Wonka admits the children and their parents/guardians and one by one the kids start to disappear or something goes wrong. In the end, Charlie and grandpa Joe are the only ones that are left and Mr. Wonka declares Charlie the winner. It was all a ruse by Mr. Wonka to find a successor for his factory, he wanted a good sensible loving child to be the successor and to share his secret recipes with. Mr. Wonka also says that his entire family is welcome to live at the factory.

This was such a delightful albeit a little gloomy and hilarious read. I did read this when I was younger and I loved it and I just re-read it and again loved it. I especially loved the songs. I do have a confession though, when I was younger I used to think that Willy Wonka and the mad hatter from Alice in Wonderland were the same. Obviously I learnt that they are two completely different characters as I grew up but yeah that's what I used to think. I very much enjoyed this re-visit.

5 stars

Since the Swiss make the best chocolate figures in the world, I thought I would pick up a few to take with me to England. I was originally only intending to buy a couple of chocolate rabbits, engagingly goofy-looking with big buck teeth and natty bow-ties, but the selection was so enticing that I eventually walked out with four rabbits, a chicken with a marzipan waistcoat and a chocolate chalet. I explained to the nice assistant that they would be accompanying me to London later that day, and she spent ages wrapping them up in individual boxes.

But, when we opened them yesterday, catastrophe! She evidently hadn't used enough tissue paper. Not a single figure was whole: two rabbits had lost their ears and two their heads, the chicken's wings were broken, and the roof had come off the chalet. It seemed like a very poor return on 116 Swiss Francs. On closer examination, though, the breaks looked fairly clean. We wondered if surgery was possible.

David and I went to the shop around the corner, bought a substantial bar of Cadbury's milk chocolate, and melted it carefully in a double-boiler. Our first plan was to use the chocolate as glue - we have a lot of experience with building gingerbread houses. But it turns out that melted chocolate makes very poor glue; it isn't sticky enough. The operation was also complicated by the fact that it was impossible to hold the pieces directly, since they immediately started melting in our hands (it was a hot day). We decided that we had to hold them using kitchen roll, which was anything but convenient. Things looked hopeless for a moment.

And then, breakthrough! Maybe it was a good thing that the chocolate melted so easily, and we could exploit that? We'd already determined that gluing didn't work. How about welding? And, with some care, it turned out that it was possible. The new technique consisted of dipping the edge of the piece in the melted chocolate to soften it and then pushing it into place so that it fused, making a solid join, and we successfully used it to mend all six figures. The first two looked a little messy, but the final ones were so good that you actually couldn't tell they'd been broken. It was almost beyond belief.

Please, Mr. Wonka, can I come and work for you? As you see, I'm really into chocolate technology.

Fantastic book for children that teaches morals at a young age. This brought back many childhood memories as Dahl was one of my favourite authors when I was younger, these stories are fun to enjoy at any age even with their dark(ish) undertones.

{3.75 stars}

n  “But there was one other thing that the grown-ups also knew, and it was this: that however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there.”n

Random scenes from the 2005 movie adaption (that I watched as a child) keep popping in my head with absolutely zero context--kid sinking and screaming, weird guy in a hat with a creepy smile, and lots of gum-chewing. I had no idea what this was about.

It's actually a pretty sweet story. I can't believe I'm only now reading this.

I like the optimistic nature of Dahl's books--that things will work out happily ever after for nice children. This may set children up to be delusional... but there are worse things to be.

This book was quite disturbing. I mean Augustus Gloop, who apparently had a nasty cold, completely contaminated the entire chocolate river, and then Wonka scoops out cup-fulls for Charlie and Grandpa Joe to drink, and they do. Nasty! You just know that Augustus peed himself from fear when he fell in, too!

I really enjoyed this, with the exception of the insanely long Oompa-Loompa songs. I just don't like reading verse, no matter how clever it is, so I skimmed these sections. Sometimes pages of them. :/

Otherwise, I liked it a lot, though I actually expected it to be darker than it was. This is my first time reading Dahl, despite owning a handful of his books, and I'd always heard that he wrote darker stuff for kids, which is awesome. I loved the adult humor. It allows people of all ages to m enjoy the book. Especially the puns. Square candy that looks round indeed! Cute. :)

This one has to be one of my favorite stories. Such a fun, quick and easy read. Roald Dahl's writing style is super entertaining. Can't wait to read more by him.

As with all of Roald Dahl's stories so far, I've seen the movie before I've read the book.

After catching up on the stories I already knew (Matilda and The Witches) it was now time to also read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory of course.

And what a delight! Roald Dahl really is a masterful storyteller! He makes one dive deep into the story and experience everything as if the reader was actually there.

This is the almost heartbreaking story of a boy growing up in a poor family, who therefore is very nice and considerate in everything he does. I found myself almost crying when Charlie's situation was described and we learnt of all the hardship his family had to go through - and how they still tried to make the best of it! It really lets one contemplate one's own situation and it made me feel very grateful.
Charlie's counterpart are 4 children of the worst sort.
And it's the story about luck (that still doesn't come too easily), justice and lots and lots of mischief and fun.

The story is written simple enough for small children to follow the events while simultaneously having great puns and jokes in it as well. And, naturally, Roald Dahl's magnificent sense of very black humour!

In this case, that humour struck in form of 4 very nasty children and the "lessons" they were taught.
We have one boy who won't stop eating, one girl who is spoilt by her parents and simply behaves like a depraved brat, one girl who chews chewing gum like a cow eats grass (and is very rude to her mother) and a boy who loves nothing beside television.
Especially the last one shows how old the story is, what with the author demonizing television. However, he was differentiating, letting Willy Wonka say that television itself wasn't bad as long as it was just small doses.
And the Oompa-Loompas and their songs - just marvellously funny, emphazising each point about bad behaviour (not just by children)!

I must say that the movie (please note that I can only speak for the new version with Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka) did catch the spirit of things.
The factory with all the fantastic rooms and clever ways of making sweets,


the craziness of Mr. Wonka,


the awfulness of the 4 children,


nice little Charlie


and the sarcastically funny and mischievious Oompa-Loompas!



However, considering Dahl's aversion towards television, I wonder what his opinion of the movie adaptation(s) would be!

Anyway I wanted to show the movie version with regard to the book illustrations because I was quite pleased with the movie (which is not every day), except for some details in between that led to the almost completely different ending (and I'm not sure that it was different in a good way).

This book, like the others by Roald Dahl, has the original illustrations by Quentin Blake and I am very glad that the author seems to have had only this one illustrator. The pictures / style of the pictures are like a trademark and complete the little books.

There is a saying in Germany, coming from a TV ad for sweets (!) that says "What's good for children can't be bad for adults!" and especially in case of Roald Dahl's books that's true! The stories all resound with truth, social criticism, warmth and the best of black humour. They make me reflect on a lot of important issues and I always enjoy them tremendously!

اولين بار فيلمش رو با بازى جانى دپ از تلويزيون ديدم. كوچيك بودم كه تماشاخانه شبكه ى پنج پخش مى كرد و من هر بار ميديدمش. عاشق اين فيلم بودم. عاشق ويلى ونكا و كارخونه ى جادويىِ شكلات سازيش بودم. عاشق اون قيافه و رفتاراى عجيب و غريبش بودم.
گذشت و گذشت تا يك ماه پيش كه تو شهركتاب چشمم خورد به كتابش. وسوسه شدم و خريدمش. و از اين بابت خيلى خوشحالم. فوق العاده بود. ايده ى كتاب و سبك نوشتنش جورى بود كه يكسره خوندمش و با اينكه تمام داستان رو ميدونستم و تك تك صحنه هاش رو حفظ بودم واسم كلى جذاب بود :)
يه تشكرى هم بكنيم از تيم برتونِ عزيز بابت فيلمِ خوش ساختش :) البته فيلم يه تفاوت هايى با كتاب داشت. مثلا اون قسمت كودكى ويلى ونكا و ماجراى پدرش ايده ى فيلم بود و در كتاب وجود نداشت ( گرچه وجودش تو فيلم خوب بود )
و جانى دپ عزيز هم كه گل كاشته بود !
اين اولين كتابى بود كه از رولد دال خوندم و حدس مى زنم از اين به بعد طرفدار سرسخت كتاب هاش ميشم !

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.

Read this book ages ago and my children loved this story. We have also watched the movie many times. storytelling at it's best.