James and the Giant Peach is as whimsical as Roald’s other children books. It’s fun, hilarious and preposterous. The plots may not be logical for adults but it is reasonable enough for children; it is delightful to real such a book with a bit eccentric characters and exhilarating riding a Giant Peach!
I think this book may convey some political messages to older audiences, like American dreams, some more subtle information behind the crazy story, to take a peak upon our real world from different angles. Those characters are resemble with humanoid behavior and personality that would make you laugh loud. Furthermore, James had been riding the Giant peach through majestically wonderful landscapes, that is one of the comfort read for readers.

All need to say is, hooray! The Giant peach is coming!!

I am on the fence with Roald Dahl books: they are imaginative and have creative humor, but I feel they lack empathy and are often mean. They have mean characters, but what’s most disturbing is that the supposedly good characters are often extremely mean to them in return.

James and the Giant Peach does display a side of good characters who become friends and go through marvellous adventures, but this is brought down by the mean things they say about the aunties, mocking their appearance, and the bickering between the centipede and the Earthworm. Two and a half stars - I rounded up for creativity.

3.25/5⭐

Very cute ending!

معمولی‌ترین و خسته‌کننده‌ترین کار رولد دال تا الان

What a short lovely story. I never got around to reading this story in my younger days but I’m glad I read it now. It’s a true fairy tale full of adventure and morality. It’s amazing how Roald Dahl could write such tender loving characters as well as mean and evil ones like the aunts; a master story teller at work.

hope this one was sold by the unit and not by the kilo! so what if it had a small army of resident insects... still a steal of a deal...

A.k.a. James and his Dumptruck Ass!!!!!!!!1! Hahahhahahaha man life is hard and it's the little jokes like this that make it worth living, u know ? anyway, my wife left me

A funny, dark and poetic book. I read this after seeing a documentary about Roald Dahls' life and hearing some of the book's passages narrated within the perspective of his time cramped up in a WWII bomber plane as a bombardier (he was very tall). The peach represents the polar opposite of being in a noisy and clattering war plane, manning a gun and always under the threat of death. The peach is a peaceful, sweet and quiet flying machine.

4,5 stars- English paperback

Quote: "There's more power and magic in those things there than all the rest of the world put together."

Almost "broken" paperback copy of this book. Read many times. One of my favorites.

A sad story, like others from Roald Dahl, but great adventures. James, an orphan, has to live with his aunts, Sponge and Spiker, really bad characters. But then, magic happens and the adventures begin.
I did not understand why the Ladybug is not flying.

Цікава книжка, але поведінка деяких персонажів не дуже.

2025: Just LE and I read it because she was homesick from school one day and we read for a few hours, so we finished it over the next month or so without brother. How many times can I read this with my kids? the limit does not exist! I think I even missed recording one on here between '22 and '25 so I better bump this up to a 5.

2022: JD's review, "I like it because it has a giant peach and that James is lonely at first and that we get to guess which states it's in."

Context - We read this out loud and JD was completely involved, LE was in and out but most of the time she was interested. As we would read I would ask them what they though was going to happen based on what was going on, and when they went across and saw the big city we spent time guessing where we thought they landed.

My review: This book was just as fun to read as an adult as it was when I was a child. The magical whimsy of Roald Dahl is not dated. The mean adults in this one are so short lived which is nice as an intro to Dahl with my 4 and 6 year old. Giant bug and giant peaches and Cloud Men and flying and broken rainbows and sharks swarming and falling and landing on the top of the Empire State Building! Such adventures! It's just perfect.

I thought the Cloud Men part was a tiny bit long and some of the insults (especially in the songs) were a little much again for my tinies. But otherwise just a magical adventure.