Hahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

My sweet six year old picked the BFG as our next read-aloud book after finishing  Matilda. It stared out well and he giggled every time the giant said something goofy but as the chapters went on I could tell his interest was waning. When we read Matilda and  The Mouse and the Motorcycle he would beg nearly every night for an extra chapter. With the BFG things were a bit different, around the middle he started choosing to watch tv for a half hour before bed instead of a chapter.

However, once we got to about the last 5 chapters he became very interested again because there was more action happening.

I still very much enjoy Roald Dahl's style, even as an adult, and I am sure this won't be our last read-aloud from his body of work.

Zgodan blurb za ovaj roman (i za većinu drugih Dalovih dečjih knjiga) glasio bi "VDDŽ - knjiga od koje roditelji padaju u nesvest, dok deca uživaju u njoj". Jer deca vole džinove ljudoždere koji za noć pojedu pola ženskog internata i jednako vole da ih stigne zaslužena kazna. I da, knjiga je uzbudljiva i originalna i pravi jezički vatromet (sve pohvale za kreativnost prevoda Jelene Katić Živanović, od Kostokrca do zvrjoprasa).
E sad, odrasli odnos prema Dalu je dosta podvojeniji jer tu (recimo) postane znatno primetniji njegov rasizam i (recimo) veličanje britanske krune koje stvarno nije moralo toliko da se nagazi i (recimo) sadizam koji... pa nije baš da ga nema. Pa vi vidite sami šta će da pretegne.

Herein, a Nicholas Nickleby-reading, dream-blowing, runt giant (he is only 24 feet tall) with super hearing kidnaps a young girl (Sophie) from an orphanage, after she sees him out and about.

“‘I did not steal you very much’, said the BFG, smiling gently” (p. 54).

When Sophie finds out what the other, larger giants are doing on a regular basis, the race to stop them is on. Along the way, we have to question whether humans need to be stopped, too:

“She was beginning to wonder whether humans were actually any better than giants” (p. 79).

What are the giants doing that is so evil? Eating another type of animal, besides themselves—namely, people (or “human beans”)! And, specifically, they are eating children who they pluck out of beds at night! In fact, I think it is accurate to characterize this as a relatively scary kids horror story. On top of the child-eating, there is talk of executions (“We are chopping off people’s heads like you are chopping parsley,” p. 174). In other words, I would hesitate to give this to a very young child to read, especially if the child is disposed to being frightened.

“Little chiddlers is not so tough to eat as old grandmamma, so says the Childchewing Giant” (p. 76).

Like many others, I remember the Roald Dahl books that I read, or had read to me, during my childhood fondly, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and especially, Matilda. Perhaps because I expected to have the same childhood reading adventure as I had with those books, I liked, but did not love, The BFG. I think that Dahl's idea for the story is a creative one, but little things, such as the puns on the names of countries when the BFG describes the taste of "human beans" in those countries, or what I think were stereotypical remarks at the end of the novel. For instance, when Dahl describes thankful world leaders bestowing gifts upon Sophie and the BFG for saving their people from man-eating giants, he writes that "The Rule of India sent the BFG a magnificent elephant...The King of Arabia sent them a camel each. The Lama of Tibet sent them a llama each" (pp. 204-5). However, to me, the worst line was when the Queen of England called the Sultan, "next best thing" to a Lord Mayor to ask him whether any of his subjects had mysteriously disappeared recently, and he responds, "Every night unpleasant things are happening in Baghdad...We are chopping off people's heads like you are chopping parsley" (p. 174).

To be fair, the novel was copyrighted in 1982, and probably written before such things were widely considered inappropriate, and the book is widely engaging and creative. Some would also say that these things are "just jokes," that they were silliness written for the amusement of children. In spite of the fact that the novel was written over two decades ago, I do not think that children should just absorb these lines, because they are most likely reading this book at the suggestion of an adult who is, in their mind, only supposed to give them "good" books. The children would most likely read these lines and the stereotypes exoticizing non-Western countries would persist.

Another niggling doubt about the book was the resolution with the giants being imprisoned in a giant pit, doomed to eat disgusting snozzcumbers for the rest of their lives. I think that Dahl was well-intentioned in including the conversation between the BFG and Sophie about how humans make their own rules, and giants make their own rules and that the rules don't coincide. When I got to this conversation, which included the the BFG basically telling Sophie that it was somewhat judgmental or short-sighted of her to immediately think of the other giants as bad, because humans, unlike giants, kill their own kind all the time, I thought that the story was incredibly promising. However, the story ended as they typically do, especially in "children's" literature, with the "bad" guys getting captured and the "good" guys living happily ever after without the moral ambiguity that Dahl touched upon in that one particular conversation between Sophie and the BFG. I think that it might have been more interesting if it was ever brought up that perhaps giants just eat humans just as humans eat bacon, sausage, and eggs, just as Sophie, the BFG, and the Queen did at the end of the story, and that perhaps the solution would be to respect all life, just as the BFG always had (before uncharacteristically eating all that bacon and sausage at the end of the novel) because he could hear the world's suffering. Instead, as I mentioned, the story has a more typical ending, and it is emotionally acceptable that the human-eating giants are imprisoned with disgusting food for the rest of their lives (and the Queen is humane for imprisoning them rather than killing them, to boot) only because Dahl portrays the giants as disgusting throughout the entire novel. Although the giants are portrayed as mean in the scene during which they toss around the BFG, emphasis is continuously on how the giants are "half-naked and disgusting" in their appearance and smell. Thus, emphasis is placed on their physical, rather than moral disgustingness, and to me, this is too reminiscent of the way that we vilify those who are different than us to justify our inhuman treatment of them.

In closing, although I enjoyed this book because of Dahl's creativity in coming up with a BFG and a dreamblower, etc, I don't think that it should hold such a coveted place in children's literature because it is somewhat outdated in its attitude, and there are many, many wonderful children's adventure novels out there with which to replace it. I think that it would be a good novel to discuss with kids, but I don't think that parents/teachers should just give it to kids an example of a "good book" because remember loving it during their childhood.

P.S. It's a little frustrating that people just think I'm being "oversensitive" or that I'm just another crazy person who wants everything to be PC. I don't think that my reaction to this book was knee-jerk (for instance those people who refuse to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and/or think it has no merit because of the use of the n-word). I've said many good things about this book. Heck, I even liked it. I just pointed out that I don't think that it's perfect, my reasons for not thinking that it's perfect, and that there are plenty of great books out there for kids to read, so people should at least think a millisecond about what they recommend to kids (about the content, child's maturity, and child's personal preferences) instead of just pushing their own childhood favorites on them.

Another book scratched out of my top reading list..
I already read quite a few of the author`s books and this was my last one of his. And was it just as funny as his other books?

I thought it had some funny moments but wasn't as hilarious as  Charlie and the Glass Elevator. This one is more between 3.5 to 4 stars.

I actually listened to the audio read by David Walliams. He did an excellent job, especially with the invented words that the BFG uses and the different characters of the story. It was wonderful done. He actually made the story even more hilarious by his narration.

Overall, it's Roald Dahl's story, I mean he's an icon, right? He always has the most funniest, weirdest and wonderful magical stories.

I grinned from ear to ear, I laughed out loud, and I even nodded in grave seriousness. These are the reactions  The BFG had evoked from me.

n
‘Human beans is the only animals that is killing their own kind. Even poisnowse snakes is never killing each other. Nor is the most fearsome creatures like tigers and rhinostossterisses. None of them is ever killing their own kind. Has you ever thought about that?’

- The BFGn

(If you're amused or puzzled at the poor usage of grammar and spellings, I don't quite blame you.)

This was so delightful! Roald Dahl’s crammed in a lot of odd, new words in here - as usual - and they often cracked me up. What's more,  The BFG is also ironic at times and it put me to ponder about the ways of humans.

The Big Friendly Giant is the only one of his kind to disapprove of eating human beings. He was out one night, blowing dreams into sleeping children’s windows when he was spotted by Sophie.

In his hand went and then, he kidnapped her right out of the orphanage bedroom!

The two shared a couple of long conversations about all sorts of topics (some conversations is quite silly, some make you wonder). Before long, they realized they had to do something about the man-eating giants.


This was full of adventures. I think any kids could easily have loved this. I've also come to appreciate Dahl’s wry humour and his new never-been-seen-on-dictionaries vocabularies have marked his writing style as unique.

It was the movie trailer that pushed me to read the written work and I have no regrets. I can't wait to see how it all played out onscreen!

REVIEW TO COME

This is going to be a mini review.

'Sometimes, on a very clear night,' the BFG said, 'and if I is swiggling my ears in the right direction'-
and here he swivelled his great ears upwards so they were facing the ceiling - 'if I is swiggling them like this and the night is very clear, I is sometimes hearing faraway music coming from the stars in the sky.'

I finally read this book after leaving it standing on my bookshelf for months because I still hadn't find the right time to read it until few days ago. Few days ago I was in the mood for children books or middle grade books to help me to get over my book - hangover and so I chose to read this book.
this book indeed quite helped me to get over my book - hangover and the story was quite fun but I couldn't give this book more than 3 stars because of the giant's languange. The way he spoke always confused me. like this :

n  'It's a trogglehumper!' he shouted. His voice was filled with fury and anguish. 'Oh, save our solos!' he cried. 'Deliver us from weasels! The devil is dancing on my dibbler!'n



most of the time I was confused and I was like " What ... ???? " but the story was pretty good but not really awesome in my opinion. The story didn't make my heart pounding hard but the story wasn't bad either. it was just okay.
I'm sure I would've liked this book more if I had completely understood all BFG said but most of the time I didn't really understand what he said but I really loved the illustrations! they were great and I loved them.

thank you for reading and liking this review. I hope you all have a great day!❤❤

I had about 3-4 hours of household things to do and this was a perfect book for it! A very sweet story.
The narrator is so good! I haven't listened to anything from him before that. I felt like Sir Ian or Stephen Fry was reading the book. And he was doing the impression of queen's voice so accuratly! Definitely worth a try!

My favourite childhood story.

بدون تردید رولد دال یکی از محبوب‌ترین داستان نویسان کودکه که بیشتر از کودکان، بزرگسالان کتابهاش رو میخونن و عاشقشن.
این داستان فانتزی، یکی از محبوب ترین داستانهای زندگی منه. غول بزرگ مهربونی که شبها وقتی ما خوابیم، از جلوی پنجره مون رد میشه و رویاهای شیرین بهمون هدیه میده. همه خوابهای خوب و شیرینی که می‌بینیم رو بی اف جی بهمون بخشیده.

Ένα από τα αγαπημένα μου παιδικά βιβλία.Μαγικός Roald Dahl.