James and the Giant Peach
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James and the Giant Peach is a children's book by Roald Dahl, originally illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert, first published in the USA in 1961 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and then in London in 1967 by Allen & Unwin. Because of the book's content it has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number fifty six. [link]
Synopsis
James Henry Trotter, an ordinary four year old boy, has had a happy life but is orphaned as a result of a bizarre and terrible accident (his parents were supposedly swallowed by a Rhino (which are, in truth, herbivorous)). He is sent to live with his two aunts, Spiker and Sponge, who subject him to a variety of physical and mental abuse.
One day while chopping wood in the garden, James, then age seven, meets a strange man who mysteriously knows James's plight and gives him a small sack containing the ingredients for a magic potion, the consumption of which, the stranger promises, will bring James wealth, happiness, and great adventure. Unfortunately, while running back to the house to hide the sack, James trips and drops it. It bursts and the magic green crystals sink into the ground and vanish without a trace - or so it then seems. James is horrified at the loss of what seemed to be his only opportunity for escape from his wretched aunts. But things take another odd turn when a long-barren peach tree in the garden puts forth a single fruit which grows to almost twice the size of the tree. Spiker and Sponge realise they can make money, so they charge people to see the giant peach. One night, James, who has been shoved out of the house to pick up the litter from the crowd, crawls inside the giant peach, where he finds a most bizarre group of friends: a giant Centipede, Miss Spider, Old-Green-Grasshopper, Silkworm, Ladybug, and Glowworm. The peach, with the help of the centipede, breaks off the tree, rolls over and flattens James's two aunts, and into the Atlantic Ocean, where their adventures really begin.
Film version
A film version of the same name was released in 1996, directed and co-produced, respectively, by The Nightmare Before Christmas collaborators Henry Selick and Tim Burton. It featured a combination of live-action and stop-motion animation.
See also
- James Henry Trotter
- The Old Green Grasshopper
- The Centipede
- The Earthworm
- The Silkworm
- Miss Spider
- Aunt Sponge
- Aunt Spiker
- ISBN 0375814248 (hardcover, 2002)
- ISBN 0670885770 (hardcover, 1999)
- ISBN 0786831057 (hardcover, 1996)
- ISBN 0670852511 (hardcover, 1995)
- ISBN 0613359658 (library binding, 2001)
- ISBN 0679980903 (library binding, 1996)
- ISBN 0141304677 (paperback, 2001)
- ISBN 0141311355 (paperback, 2001)
- ISBN 0141307560 (paperback, 2000)
- ISBN 0001024949 (paperback, 1997)
- ISBN 0679880909 (paperback, 1996)
- ISBN 0140382348 (paperback, 1996)
- ISBN 0140374248 (paperback, 1996)
- ISBN 0140382976 (paperback, 1996)
- ISBN 0140371567 (paperback, 1995)
- ISBN 1557344418 (paperback, 1994)
- ISBN 0140342699 (paperback, 1990)
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All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.