I've just finished reading a book written by a big friendly giant! This is amazing!!

I wasn't suppose to read this kids book at my late twenties though, yet I've read it and loved it!

Sometimes when you feel llike drowning into your thoughts or stuck in life all you need is a kids book to ease your mind!

I bought this book awhile ago and after reading a few untoward things about the author dismissed it. But now we have The BFG movie out in all of it's Steven Spielberg splendor, and I decided to give it a quick read to see if my GK's would like it. As usual Roald Dahl author of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, and Matilda, seems to write with some question as to whom his audience might be. This is THE # 1 selling Children's book on Amazon right now, with an age recommendation of 7 and up? The Big Friendly Giant who kidnaps Sophie only because she has seen him, is a "nice and jumbly" giant which is good as the other 9 in the story are cannibalistic meanies, whose eating of children from various countries ( children from Wales (Whales) taste fishy etc) and such antics as spitting out the bones are never really described in much detail merely mentioned. Also the BFG has a word mangling and grammar problem throughout the entire book," By goggles, your head is not so full of grimesludge after all. I can see you is not born last week." And some of his words get just bad enough to no doubt delight 3rd- 4th grade boys ( probably including my Grandson) ..you know things like slimesnotters etc, perhaps a funny read aloud but loads of made up words that most likely cannot be read, pronounced, or understood by 8 year olds. Anyway I'm giving it 4 stars, even though I can see some might have issues with it. I'll try the read aloud this WE and see the response. And as mentioned earlier, I really dislike the title..knowing full well the first thing adults think of for BFG will not be Big Friendly Giant, lol ... A Roald Dahl trademark move.

Wow

"Human beans is thinking they is very clever, but they is not. They is nearly all of them notmuchers and squeakpips," says the BFG in Roald Dahl's most philosophical work, and, well, that's about accurate I guess, and I'm not sure how I feel about exposing an eight-year-old to this kind of truth. Fine? Might as well start 'em sometime? "Human beans is the only animals that is killing their own kind," he also says, which is not actually true but the point is more or less valid. And "Just because we happen not to have actually seen something with our own two little winkles, we think it is not existing," which sounds like God stuff but I don't think it necessarily is; it's more about imagination than specific theology.

This is a heavy book, is my point. There's a lot packed in here. But "Meanings is not important" anyway, says the Giant. "I cannot be right all the time."

I absolutely adored Roald Dahl’s storytelling whilst I was a kid and The BFG was no different.

Young Sophie wakes in the middle of the night to discover a giant man walking the streets with a bag and a trumpet.
He’s The Big Friendly Giant!

Wonderfully descriptive, the language in this book is great.
Humans referred to as ‘Human Beans’ is just hilarious.

It’s a great fun Whizzpopper of a story!

Second read
Loved rereading it!

First read
I never read this story as a kid, so it was all new to me. I loved the human aspects (and morals) in this novel and the dreaming parts were interesting too. So yes basically I really enjoyed this book and I cannot wait to see the movie this week! :)

oh... how i wish i have a best friend like BFG that takes me to the far far far away land where dream can be catch.
how i wish i stay forever on this imaginary land and never wakes up.

"What a spiffling whoppsy room we is in! It is so gigantuous I is needing bicurculers!"

Please kill me now. No, I mean it. Seriously. Kill me now.

"I am brimfull of buzzburgers, This is a sizzling-hot muckfrumping country..."

Please, God. Oh please, please God, make it stop, make it stop, just make it...

"What a phizz-whizzing flushbunking seat. I is going to be as bug as a snug in a rug up here..."

NOOOO!! Sweet mother of God!!!!

Am I still alive? Is it over? Please tell me it's over.

I scan through these 5-star reviews, and I feel like I'm on crazy pills. This book is awful! It's unendurable. This is a classic? How? How? Nothing happens in it. There is no story. There is no wit. There is no magic. Giant Country might as well be Walmart, for all the magic it evokes. Flat! Dull! Dull! And then there's the cave. The cave! I've read some of these 4-star reviews - they grudgingly admit that their kid's attention began to wander somewhere in the middle....yeah, yeah, yeah, admit it! They hated it! It's the Emperor's New Clothes! I know caves. Caves can be magical. Plato's cave. Tom Sawyer's cave. Robinson Crusoe's cave. Those are magical caves. This cave? Not magical. This is not a magical cave. This is the boringest cave ever. What transpires in this cave? Nothing. I kid you not - nothing. Nothing transpires in this cave. 100 pages transpire in this cave. Two thirds of this book, literally a full two thirds, consists of a single unending dialogue in this cave between Sophie and the Giant. Sophie asks a question, and the Giant answers in his INSUFFERABLE DIALECT!!!!, providing some cutesy, backwards explanation about how things work in Giant Country. Then she asks another question. And he answers. Back and forth. And the answers are invariably moronic, punny, unfunny, uninteresting, and utterly irrelevant. They are winks at the adult reader. His entire personality, his every utterance, is a wink at the adult reader. He is not an attempt at character creation. No Big Friendly Giant would ever say these things. He is a fraud. This whole book is a fraud. I kept waiting for the dialogue to end, so something would happen. No luck. It just kept going and going and going, chapter after chapter after chapter....

I love children's fantasy novels. I love them. I teach them, for God's sakes! But this book is a load of swashbickling scrumdiddliumptious crap. I am genuinely mystified by the love this book engenders in people. Am I raping people's childhood by suggesting this? This book raped my adulthood.

Kids know. They know. I began by reading this to my 7 year-old daughter. This was supposed to be our nightly bonding ritual. We started. A few evenings went by. She seemed restless. She seemed distracted. She kept picking her toes. After 4 chapters, I noticed a definite shift. She started avoiding me come sundown. She would look at the clock and get nervous. She kept finding excuses to get out of story-time. She was tired. She was drawing. She had a headache. I pleaded. I coaxed. I offered bribes. Nothing. No good. "Let's watch the trailer again, Daddy!" The trailer. She prefers the trailer! She likes the big hand that comes in the window. She likes John Williams. She likes Mark Rylance, I think. And so here I sit, book on lap, daughter somewhere else in the house - playing, living, being free - and I stare heavily downwards, sunken heart, faced with the unthinkable prospect of having to finish the goddamn thing myself.

And I did, somehow. Sweet Jesus. It was painful. Insincere. Affected. Artificial. Tedious.

Just so you know, my daughter and I sped through Baum's The Wizard of Oz in about a week. Two, sometimes three chapters a night. She loved it. Couldn't get enough of it. You know why? Because kids know. They know, I tell you. How do parents not know? Why do parents keep inflicting this book on their poor, helpless children? Because of the message? Bullying is bad? Being different is okay? Do the right thing? Here's a good message: don't read shit to your children. Please, stop it, now. Read them Dr. Seuss. Read them Wizard of Oz. Read them Peter Pan. Read them The Wind in the Willows. Read them The Enchanted Castle. Just not this. For the sake of the children.

Because they know.

"Io è un diverso! Io è un gentile gigante confusionato! Io è il solo gentile gigante confusionato in tutto il Paese dei Giganti! Io è il GRANDE GIGANTE GENTILE! Io è il G.G.G."

E' l'ora delle ombre.
La piccola Sofia si rigira nel lettino dell' orfanotrofio, non riuscendo a prendere sonno. Si alza e si affaccia alla finestra ma....

... "improvvisamente si sentì gelare. Qualcosa risaliva la strada…
Qualcosa di nero…
Qualcosa di grande…
Una cosa enorme, magrissima e oscura. Chi?".

E' il G.G.G. :
il Grande Gigante Gentile che porterà con sè la piccola facendole conoscere un mondo nuovo, ossia, il Paese dei Giganti.
Roald Dahl ha dato vita ai peggiori incubi (anzi, come direbbe il G.G.G.: in-cùbi!) di ogni bambino insegnando che l'amicizia e la solidarietà sono le armi vincenti contro ogni male.
E in tutta la lettura il mondo adulto non ne esce un granché bene.

Una storia che fa ridere per lo strampalato linguaggio del caro Gigante ma, al contempo emoziona grandi e piccoli.
Straconsigliato a tutti!!

"«Io non riesce a capire i popollani» riprese il G.G.G.; «tu per esempio è una popollina e dice che i giganti è abominoso e monstrevole perché mangia la gente.
Chiaro o scuro?»
«Chiaro».
«Ma i popollani si imbudella tutto il tempo tra loro, si sparapacchia coi fucili e va sugli aeropalmi per tirarsi bombe sulla testa ogni settimana. I popollani uccide per tutto il tempo gli altri popollani».
Aveva ragione. Era evidente che aveva ragione, e Sofia lo sapeva. Stava cominciando a chiedersi se davvero gli uomini fossero migliori dei giganti.
«Tuttavia» disse, cercando di difendere nonostante tutto i suoi simili, «ciò non impedisce che sia riprovevole che quegli orribili giganti se ne vadano ogni notte a mangiare gli esseri umani. Gli uomini non hanno mai fatto loro nulla di male».
«É quello che dice ogni giorno anche il porcellino. Dice: “Io non ha fatto mai nulla di male agli uomini e allora, perché loro mi mangia?”»
«In effetti…»
«I popolli inventa regole che gli va bene, ma sue regole non va bene al porcellino.
Chiaro o scuro?»
«Chiaro» ammise Sofia.
«Anche i giganti inventa regole, e le sue regole non va bene ai popolli. Ognuno fa regole che va bene solo a se stesso».


PS- Su suggerimento di mia figlia le stelline hanno doppio valore quindi sarebbero 10!!!
**********

n  n    Two wrongs don’t make a right n  n

WHAT A BOOK IT WAS! What an ending it was!
I can't control my emotions. I haven't felt anything like this before. I haven't read a children book like this. I am soo happy by reading this. I am soo in love with the characters. Or writing. Or everything which this book offered me. It took me little long to finish this because of my exams. Otherwise this book was soo good that I wanted to finish it in one sitting. Nevertheless, I am finished with this and I am very happy. I think if I will be in the mood of re-reading, I will choose this book.

OVERVIEW
Sophie, an orphan, is taken away by a giant named BFG (Big Friendly Giant) as she sees him in the witching hour (a time when everyone is sleeping and giants show up). He takes her away because he is afraid that she will tell everyone and he will be in danger. BFG is a good giant. But his fellows aren't. They eat humans. But BFG don't. He considers it immoral. When Sophie learns this, she makes a plan with BFG to stop them.


THINGS I LIKED
=> BFG. I loved him. He is uneducated. Can't speak English correctly. No giant can as they have no means of education. But I loved how BFG speaks. That's what makes him soo cute and funny.
=> I liked that giants called human beings: 'Human Beans' hehehe...
=> Giants don't eat Greek people because they taste like grease hehehe...
=> I liked the chapter named 'Dream'. That was pretty hilarious. I was laughing out loud while reading this chapter.
=> BFG called helicopters 'Bellypoppers' hehehe...
=> I liked how they captured the giants. That was pretty interesting.


THINGS I COULDN'T LIKE
=> This point is not much important but I felt little bad about it. I didn't like the history of giants. But I didn't care much about it after that ending. Still it should have been better.
There are no female giants. Just males. How they were born? We don't know exactly. They just appear. What will be their end? We don't know exactly about it either. They will just disappear and nobody will know.
Regardless, I adored this book even with this fact.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. Especially children must read this book.

The matter with human beans,’ the BFG went on, ‘is that they is absolutely refusing to believe in anything unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles

April 10, 2017

Full review.
I read it because of the upcoming film and the trailer seemed really magical.

This book was very cute and in my opinion was a lot better than The Witches. It showed real emotions that a child might feel as fear, happiness and anger and sure, most of the events are really unlikely to happen, but they were fairy tale-ish enough to believe them.

And this story wasn't dark, because there weren't much of descriptions of the really scary things, which makes me feel like it would be a good tale for children.

I was a little disappointed by the ending, because of the promising premise and idea of the story - how humans are eating animals and that is alright for them, yet when giants eat humans it is basically the same thing, yet that somehow is not ok. I expected some better solution out of it all, but this was a black and white book. Especially it seemed really sad when the BFG ate bacon and eggs and it seemed to somehow justify humans eating animals, yet still putting giants eating humans in a bad light.

Another Roald Dahl book that I read to my daughter (well, mostly I read it, she read a few chapters to me), about a chapter a night, most nights...

While the previous Roald Dahl books we whipped through pretty quickly, this one seemed to take ages, in fact it was quite overdue at the library when we finally got it back (lucky they don't fine kids isn't it!).

I didn't particularly enjoy reading this one to her, it was the painful mixed up English the BFG uses - and not so much for the concentration required to get the words out, but more the gibberish that I didn't really think was helping my daughters learning the same way that reading correct English does. It was ok to start with, but it forms such a big part of the book it quickly becomes wearisome.

The ludicrousness of the ending with the Queen was probably secondary to the nonsense words, although my daughter seemed to like it enough that every time I suggested we pack in in and give it back to the library she begged to carry on. I suspect she was far more amused hearing the nonsense than I was reading it out.

There is certainly plenty of violence throughout the story, but I don't have an issue with that - there is more violence on a one hour news broadcast than in any two chapters of this book. Children who remain sheltered from all aspects of life don't prosper in the real world. Bit like children not associating meat with animals, or understanding other cultures. There was also some racist parts which were pretty obvious to me, which I was less keen on exposing by daughter to.

Probably 2.5 stars from me, although I will round it up for my daughters benefit!

3 stars.