4.5 ♥️


Stupendo.

Leggendo questo piccolo libricino mi sono divertita davvero tantissimo e ancora una volta riconfermo la mia opinione su Roald Dahl: nessuno come lui è in grado di tessere avventure più ricche di gioia, colpi di scena e insieme piccole pillole utili a grandi e piccini.

Insieme a Roald Dahl è impossibile non capire il valore dell’amicizia e sopratutto della CONOSCENZA. L’amore per il sapere —stavolta rivolto alla natura e i suoi più piccoli abitanti, gli insetti— stilla a ogni pagina, facendoti non solo imparare cose nuove, ma anche sorridere in maniera genuina.

Fantasia, colore, un grande viaggio lungo l’oceano Atlantico... che chiedere di più ?

E tutto su un’enorme, gigantesca pesca vellutata ! La miglior nave e la miglior casa che si possa mai desiderare. Un luogo assurdo e perfetto nella quale far nascere la cosa più preziosa che ci sia: l’AMORE e il sostegno incondizionato di una famiglia, che — da come si evince da questo piccolo fantastico libro— non necessariamente nasce dai legami sangue, ne tantomeno (a volte) dalla stessa specie

James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl

James and the Giant Peach is a popular children's novel written in 1961 by British author Roald Dahl.

The plot centers on a young English orphan boy who enters a gigantic, magical peach, and has a wild and surreal cross-world adventure with seven magically-altered garden bugs he meets.

They set off on a journey to escape from James' two mean and cruel aunts.

Roald Dahl was originally going to write about a giant cherry, but changed it to James and the Giant Peach because a peach is "prettier, bigger and squishier than a cherry."

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «جیمز و هلوی غول پیکر»؛ «جیمز و هلوی سحرآمیز»؛ «هلوی غول پیکر»؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ انتشاراتیها: (سازمان تبلیغات، ژرف نگر؛ نوید شیراز، نشر مرکز، کاروان، افق، کارگاه سپاس، سایه بان هنر)، تاریخ نخستین خوانش: بیست و هفتم دسامبر سال1997میلادی؛

عنوان: جیمز و هلوی غول پیکر؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ مترجم: مژگان شیخی؛ تهران، سازمان تبلیغات، 1375، در 133ص، مصور، 9644713117؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده 20م

عنوان: جیمز و هلوی سحرآمیز؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ مترجم: گروه مترجمین؛ تهران، ژرف نگر، 1379، در 150ص، شابک9649279016؛

عنوان: جیمز و هلوی غول پیکر؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ مترجم: سرور قاسمی؛ شیراز، نوید شیراز، 1381، در 112ص، مصور، شابک9643580350؛

عنوان: هلوی غول پیکر؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ مترجم: ساغر صادقیان؛ تهران، نشر مرکز مریم، 1382، در 131ص، مصور، شابک9643057038؛

عنوان: جیمز و هلوی غول پیکر؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ مترجم: گیتا گرکانی؛ تهران، کاروان، 1385، در 196 ص، مصور، شابک ایکس-964849746؛

عنوان: جیمز و هلوی غول پیکر؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ مترجم: محبوبه نجف خانی؛ تهران، نشر افق، 1390، در 245ص، مصور، شابک9789643696641؛

عنوان: جیمز و هلوی غول پیکر؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ مترجم: علی هداوند؛ تهران، کارگاه سپاس، 1392، در 176ص، شابک9786006767314؛

عنوان: جیمز و هلوی غول پیکر؛ نویسنده: رولد دال؛ مترجم: ندا ترابی؛ تهران، سایه بان هنر، 1393، در 170 ص، شابک9786009380626؛

کتابی انتقادی است؛ «جیمز هنری تروتر»، پسری چهار ساله و معمولی است، و زندگی خیلی خوبی دارد، اما ناگهان یتیم می‌شود، برای اینکه یک «کرگدن»، که از باغ وحش «لندن» فرار کرده، و با اینکه «کرگدن»ها گیاهخوار هستند، ناگهان پدر و مادرش را می‌خورد؛ برای همین او مجبور می‌شود با دو عمه اش «سپایکر» و «سپونژ»، زندگی کند؛

عمه ها همیشه او را آزار و شکنجه می‌دهند؛ سه سال بعد، موقعی که «جیمز» دارد در جنگل هیزم میشکند، با مرد غریبه‌ ای دیدار می‌کند، که از بدبختی‌های «جیمز» خبر دارد؛ غریبه به او کیسه ی کوچکی، از عناصر مورد نیاز، برای ساختن یک معجون جادویی می‌دهد؛ که با خوردن آن‌ها «جیمز» به «ثروت»، «خوشبختی» و «ماجراهای جالب» می‌رسد

اما کیسه از دست «جیمز» میافتد، و بلورهای سبز درون آن، در زمین محو می‌شوند؛ اما پس از آن رویداد، یک درخت «هلو» در آنجا سبز و درخت «هلو»ی بزرگی در درخت میروید؛ عمه‌ ها قصد دارند، با نمایش دادن «هلو»، پولی به جیب بزنند؛ اما یک شب، «جیمز» از سوراخی در «هلو»، به داخل می‌رود؛ و با چند جاندار، مثل «هزارپا»؛ «ملخ»؛ «کفشدوزک»؛ و «کرم ابریشم»، دیدار می‌کند، که همه همقد و اندازه ی او هستند؛ سپس «هلو» با یاری «هزارپا»، از درخت جدا می‌شود؛ و در اقیانوس اطلس میافتد؛ یاران سوار بر «هلو»، عازم «نیویورک» می‌شوند؛ تا زندگی تازه‌ ای را آغاز کنند، و ماجراهای شگفت انگیزی را از سر می‌گذرانند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 22/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 08/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

YES!! Yes! (love to read what my GR's friends post) "just YES"! "A children's Gem"

Dahl’s first children’s book perfectly captures why he’s such a beloved author.

From the spirt of adventure to the weird quirky comedy of James’s parents being killed by escaped rhinoceros, the book juggles everything that a child would wish to read.

Mostly importantly are the insect characters that inhabit the peach, all play their part in the journey and help educate the reader on natural history.
From the glow worms light to the spiders web used for hammocks.

This book definitely peaked my interest in bugs!

I would definitely recommend James and the giant peach. Fun, quirky story that can be loved by all

Brayden and I started reading this a few days ago and we finished it up this afternoon.

James lost his parents in a horrible accident by a Rhino and had to have his wicked witch of Aunt's Sponge and Spiker, who abuse him, be his gaurdians. Thank goodness for the appearance of this peach in a tree that the Aunts could not reach, the peach took James to the best place a child could be!
The illustrations are wonderful and the bugs! Centipede with his shoes and the worm, sad.
Dahl has this way of making the read magical and silly at the same time.

A fun fantasy read!

Follow up note from Brayden: "Grandma the Spider has shoes too!"

♡

used to dream of being James. had my special favorites amongst all the talking insects, but really they were all my favorites. also used to look at animal encyclopedias and write lists of my favorite animals. then I'd imagine going on an Incredible Journey with them. animals are so much better than people!

I've never visited Central Park, but if I ever do, I'll be watching for the giant peach pit where James Henry Trotter settled happily after his wild excursion.

I knew I liked this book as a kid but I couldn't remember the details of the story. The thing that stayed in my mind all these years was the feeling of claustrophobia when James makes his way inside the peach and finds all the giant, friendly creepy-crawlies inside the peach pit. As a kid you always place yourself within the story, and I remember thinking how I'd hate to be in that enclosed space with all those critters and no windows. There was no fear of Old-Green-Grasshopper or Centipede or Earthworm or any of the others, just the feeling that if I were James I'd want OUT of that peach pit and into the fresh air.

Reading it again as an adult, my strongest impressions are of just how much FUN this whole adventure is. Roald Dahl manages the perfect blend of whimsical, frightful, exciting, and tender elements. I think that's why his books can be every bit as appealing to adults as they are to children. I'd be laughing one minute at Centipede's songs about Aunts Sponge and Spiker, and grossing out a few minutes later when Centipede tells Earthworm that the Cloud-Men will eat him: "They would cut you up like a salami and eat you in thin slices."

There's just so much to delight the reader in this first of Roald Dahl's books for children. There are the Cloud-Men who make the weather, the quirky and fractious creatures who share James's journey, the rainbow paint (LOVE the purple rainbow paint on the Centipede!), and of course the strange little man with the bristly black whiskers who gets the whole thing rolling with the "little green things."
"Where do they come from?" James wants to know.

"Crocodile tongues! One thousand long slimy crocodile tongues boiled up in the skull of a dead witch for twenty days and nights with the eyeballs of a lizard! Add the fingers of a young monkey, the gizzard of a pig, the beak of a green parrot, the juice of a porcupine, and three spoonfuls of sugar. Stew for another week, and then let the moon do the rest!"

Ah, Roald Dahl....You can still make my heart go pitter-pat with passages like that.

re-read.
James lives with an Aunt, and doesn't really have a sense of home or belonging/

Magic crystals change an old peach tree into a magical place. James enters an enormous fruit and meets a gang of new mates: an anthropomorphized ladybug a lady - ladybug), an old grasshopper, and a centipede with numerous shoes.

The peach tree rolls off and James finds a new family as they go on a rollicking adventure.

I don't know if I'd be as keen a reader as I am today without Dahl. His work was so inventive and delightful. A true great.

As always, Roald Dahl spins the most fantastic wonderful tales for children and James and the Giant Peach is up there with his greatest ones. It is also a wonderful animated film. Don't deprive your children of fantastic stories such as this one - there are one in a million!

Oh, childhood, Roald Dahl takes me right back. I will always love Roald Dahl's work, because of how much these books meant to me as a kid, not that they're not fun now, of course, but the experience really is not quite the same. Unlike with a lot of my childhood reads, dimmed to hazy memories, I have a strong recollection of my first time reading James and the Giant Peach. Much as I loved Roald Dahl (personal favorites being the BFG, The Witches, Boy, and Matilda), I dreaded reading this book, popular as it was. In my younger years, completely different from now, I was a picky reader, wandering shelves, unsure what to read. Thus when an author tickled my fancy, I embarked on all of their books that I could get my hands on. As such, eventually the time came when I had to cave and read James and the Giant Peach.

"But Christina," you might ask, "why did you not want to read this children's classic, much beloved by many you knew and by one of your favorite authors?" Well, my dear friends, the answer is simple. All my life, I have had a phobia of just about every kind of bug. My childhood self read that synopsis and looked at that cover and thought whatever the childhood equivalent of OH HELL TO THE NO was, which, I suppose, would be something in the vein of YOU CAN'T MAKE ME. Though precisely who would be trying to force me I have no idea, as my parents let me choose my own reading material.

To try to keep what has already morphed into a rather long story from becoming a tome of giant peach proportions, I caved and read it, and, as ever, Roald Dahl charmed me utterly, perhaps more than usual because he won me over in spite of my stubborn, childish desire NOT to like the book. Ever since then, I've remembered James and the Giant Peach as a favorite. Rereading a book that meant so much to you as a tiny tot is always a treacherous prospect, because, sometimes, you discover that the book that so impacted you has all of the wit and charm of Mr. Collins.

Of course, with Roald Dahl, you're pretty safe. In my case, I found that I could not enjoy this one nearly so much as an adult, but that I could still bask in the glow of Roald Dahl's boundless imagination. Seriously, that man was a freaking international treasure. How in the world did he come up with that? How did that brainstorming session go? "Mmm, this peach is delicious. Rather large. I wish I could live in a peach with my insect and arachnid friends..." The whole story runs with the absurd, making an art of it. This book would be a perfect transition to chapter books for kids who best love Dr. Seuss' wordplay and silliness.

As an adult, I just found myself unable to lose myself in the magic of the tale the way I did as a child. I kept trying to impose logic where there was never meant to be any. Admittedly, some of the absurdities, like James' parents having been eaten by an escaped rhinoceros from the zoo, are quite humorous. Others, such as how the giant peach came into existence or the fact that sea gulls carried that peach across the Atlantic Ocean without stopping, my grown up brain could not just accept.

The fact that Dahl wrote in an earlier time is very apparent in the peach's origin. James is just sitting around outside moping, when this weird man approaches him and offers him a bunch of squirmy little bright green things. He tells James to eat them so that something magical can happen to him. In the modern world, if a stranger gives you something weird like that, you better get to running and hollering your fool head off. Thankfully, James is a klutz and drops all of the green things, thus saving us from finding out what would have happened to him.

Making the main characters James and a bunch of bugs now capable of rational thought was a clever way of allowing the child to shine. James, while exceedingly young, gets to be the problem solver, because, little life experience as he possesses, he knows more about the world than the insects do, aside from some biology lessons.

Something that I entirely did not recall about this book was how much poetry Dahl wove into the story. Every few chapters, someone sings a song or uses a poem to express themselves. The songs made sense to me, but exposition as poetry did not, though I'm sure as a kid it's the best. At the end, James addresses all of the mucky mucks in America, all freaking out because the peach just landed King Kong style on the top of the Empire State Building, and calms them by introducing his friends in a poem. Sadly, this may be more efficient and logical than how governments actually function. Children will delight in these, I have no doubt, but I'm very picky about poetry.

In all, James and the Giant Peach certainly did not impress me as much now, and I suspect that, for me at least, it's not his best. Still, he has imagination and humor like no other, and I imagine I will revisit this one again someday.