Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
By: Roald Dahl
Expected Publication: January 17, 1964
196 pages
Genre: Children's Fiction, Classics, Fantasy, Humor
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Goodreads description--'The ultimate children's story' - David WalliamsGreetings to you, the lucky finder of this Gold Ticket from Mr Willy Wonka! I shake you warmly by the hand! Tremendous things are in store for you!
One miraculous moment changes Charlie Bucket's life forever.
A boy who only gets to eat cabbage soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner finds a Golden Ticket that will take him into Willy Wonka's magical chocolate factory.
Joining him on the tour are four horrible
Augustus Gloop - a great big greedy nincompoop, Veruca Salt - a spoiled brat, Violet Beauregarde - a repulsive little gum-chewer and Mike Teavee - a TV addict.
With a chocolate river, crafty squirrels and mysterious Oompa Loompas, Mr Wonka's chocolate factory is the strangest, most magnificent place Charlie has ever seen.
What other surprises are in store for the lucky ticket winners?
Now you can listen to CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY and other Roald Dahl audiobooks read by some very famous voices, including Kate Winslet, David Walliams and Steven Fry - plus there are added squelchy soundeffects from Pinewood Studios!
I'm not looking to add to what's been said about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by many smarter and more in-depth reviewers already. I only want to review our experience of the book. We got into a habit of listening to an audiobook in the car when driving around places. For one, I wanted to give the kids something to "do" when they weren't allowed to use their tablets in the car. Also, I wanted to get to a few more books as a family than we were doing. And since working these into our homeschool hasn't been too successful yet (we're only in our first year), I thought audiobooks in the car might help us get around to a few more books. And so we chose to listen to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on our way home from a field trip where we had an hour and a half drive.
The audiobook version of this was well done. Douglas Hodge did a wonderful job narrating.
The two movies that have been made based upon this book have both done a wonderful job and between the two of them, I could picture what was happening based upon each movie. I think I pictured Johnny Depp's version of Willy Wonka the most, as well as Freddie Highmore as Charlie. But I had flashes of both movies during the book. The kids all enjoyed listening, and I think it also helped that they could picture the movies as well. And of course, they wanted to watch both versions after we finished.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is probably my favorite of Roal Dahl's book (that I've read so far out of four). It's just weird enough to be a fun fantasy for me without being too weird and too realistic. See, I don't like when books are supposed to be realistic but there's a bit of magic. And books like James and the Giant Peach are a little out there (too fantastical) for my preferences.
Of course, there are many important moral lessons that we can learn from the children and parents included in the story. I won't expound upon those just now, but I always love when fiction has a nice moral and lesson to be learned. It isn't always as easy as eating chocolate to apply those lessons to our own lives, but I am a firm believer that little bit by little bit, these types of stories influence our character and our worldview. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory gets 4 Stars. Have you read (or listened to) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? What did you think? Let me know!
This review is part of my All Things Halloween event--a month of fantasy, paranormal, supernatural, mystery/thriller, etc reviews and books.
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