"The Gremlins" is the first book written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Leonard Martin, in about 1943. Interestingly, Roald Dahl collaborated with Walt Disney to create this story in the context of World War II and the fact that Disney was run by Armed Forces, when a lot of war propaganda for all ages was being made. The gremlins are cute little creatures that cause the mechanical failures on planes. They are taking revenge because their forest, where they live, got destroyed in the Industrial Revolution. Gremlin Gus, a mischieveious gremlin persuades the other gremlins that they should stop messing up planes and fight with the English against the Nazis. The gremlins and pilots were only able to agree on this after they fed the gremlins their favorite food, which is "transatlantic-special delivery airmail stamps". The gremlins then went to a training school where they become better at fighting and news spread to other "fighter squadrons". However, the main gremlin, Gus, gets sick and the rest the story is about him trying to make a recovery and doing to hospitals. By the end, the other gremlins help him recover so he is fit enough to fly again. When this happens, they sing merry songs and drink "many tankards of good strong ale" . The narrator notes than still many people do not believe in gremlins because only a few hundred people have had direct experience with the help of gremlins in war. Although this book is written by one of my favorite children's authors, Roald Dahl, I do not recommend this book. I still give it four stars because it might be great for someone who has fought in World War II or is a scholar about the topic. In that case, they might think the story is appealing.
It is important to read old children's books and see how much children's literature has changed throughout the years, and it is also important to read books that take place in response to major historical events such as World War II. Yet, I do not think the book is high quality children's literature. The story is not very engaging for children because their is a lot of text on each page, and small illustrations. This book is more of an illustrated book, than a picture book because the pictures and text do no have a strong relationship. Further, it is difficult to understand, and only someone who has a lot of knowledge about World War II will be able to understand this story in my opinion. There are many abbreviations for war such as the R.A.F and C.O, and terms such as Heinkel's that are unexplained. There is no glossary or forward or extra piece of writing that will help children understand and access this story, except a complicated introduction written for adults. More importantly , this book does not embody the themes and characteristics Roald Dahl usually includes in all his stories. There is little witty and dark humor, silly language, and chaos that children can relate too. This story is more appropriate for high schoolers or college students who are studying war propaganda in World War II. Although given that this is Roald Dahl's first book, it is interesting to see how far he has come as a writer and how much more developed his later books were compared to this book, which is why I decided to read the story of "The Gremlins". I always recommend reading older classic books to children that may have timeless concepts and ideas, but "The Gremlins" is a illustrated book that might be boring to children and cause them to disengage in the lesson.

It was ok!

To my surprise, there were multiple parts of this book that were clunky, sudden (badly so) and strangely put. At times it was completely confusing, something I haven't encountered in any of Dahl's other books which are usually quite clear and precise. This is a shame as it's an interesting idea that is as good as most of his others, as well as a neatly-presented look back upon the unique, Walt-era Disney film that could have been.

Further on the downside is the presence of the sort of ditsy colonialism that is present in other Dahl works. The Gremlins happen to have been dispossessed of their home forest by an aircraft manufacturer to build its factory. This is why they do damage to British planes; understandably so. The solution is then to rehome them to a forest reserve after the war and, in the meantime, to re-educate them and redirect their skills in support of the airforce. Much could be read into this that is not good, like pretty well all of Dahl's stories. But, like pretty well all of Dahl's stories, aspects like this can be turned around and made into teachable opportunities by sensitive parents. This side of the story is still a bummer, nonetheless.

I'm reading all of Roald Dahl's books this summer (or at least trying to!) from their original publishing dates. This was Dahl's first book and was all ready to be a Disney film. Due to a multitude of bumps in the road, it never came to be the feature film it was designed to be. Before the story even begins, a lot of backstory is given which I really appreciated. You can tell that this story is just the tip of the Roald Dahl iceberg. He is the ultimate story teller, and reading this gets me excited to re-read his creative classics like the BFG, Matilda, and of course, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

An amazing story - Dahl's first. As amazing is the background tale of why it never became the brilliant movie it should have.

What I learned from this book:
Odd things happen. Sometimes they mess things up. Sometimes they make things better. Sometimes they just make things more interesting. But odd things happen, and we have less control over them than we like to think.

Here is the book, wholly recreated on line, other than the cover:
http://www.roalddahlfans.com/books/gr...

Cute story.... not amazing though. In some places, the story felt a bit disjointed and I had to re-read sections to figure out what was going on. For all that, it was still a fun story and the artwork was eye-catching. It was quite interesting to read in the forward the history on how Walt Disney had planned to make this into a film and how it almost happened and why it didn't!

Ci vedo molte reference al colonialismo, all'urbanesimo e alla conquista del west. Sarebbe un libro perfetto se non ci fosse quella romanticizzazione disneyana di questi argomenti, solo per renderli adatti ad un pubblico di bambini

This was on my wish list for years as copies were wayyy out of print and going for over $500. Luckily fantagrapic books had the insight to reissue this thing.

It might be of interest to fans of animation history as this was originally intended to be a feature length Walt Disney production. Leonard Maltin added a decent forward going into more detail about their work together and why the project ultimately failed. While i wouldn't say this children's book is Dahl's best work... its an ok read. Amazon's got copies for under five bucks, so what do you really have to lose?

Due to the extremely primitive prose of Roald Dahl here, the characters' motivations are near-incomprehensible. But the design of the gremlins themselves is classic--and tragically little-used--Disney. They would make great tattoos, if you're into that kind of thing.

I saw this listed on a list of Dahl books and had never heard of it. I knew Dahl had done some work for the effort as an author but had never heard of this collaboration with Disney. It's a shame it didn't take off because I have a very clear memories of watching Bugs Bunny and the Gremlins, but it's definitely not his best work.

Weird. I can see why they decided not to make this into a movie.

Now, I love Roald Dahl. A lot. But wow, this story was stupid.