Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that there's no more to be concerned about here than in your average fairy tale. Giants eat kids offstage and talk about how tasty they are, which might bother very sensitive kids. The made-up language, though, will be difficult for the lower end of the target age group to read themselves, so it works best as a read-aloud.
Families who read this book could discuss the made up words the author uses. Can you tell how he put them together? Parents may want to encourage kids to make up words of their own.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
"It's a razztwizzler. It's gloriumptious." Each of the late Roald Dahl's whoppsy-whiffling stories (and there are swiggles of them) has some unique element that sets it apart, both from his other works and from those of anyone else. Here it's language -- sheer, unadulterated, silly playing with language. The BFG speaks most terrible wigglish -- after all, he has never been to school, and "sometimes is saying things a little squiggly." Everything he wants to say "is always getting squiff-squiddled around."
All of this babblement makes this a delightful read-aloud, both for the listener, and for the adult reader who can let go of inhibitions and have fun with the twitch-tickling wordplay. You'll need that lack of inhibition when you get to the scene where Sophie and the BFG drink Frobscottle, a carbonated drink whose bubbles go down instead of up, resulting in, well, thunderous whizzpoppers.
And, while your child is rolling on the floor, if you're not as quacky as a duckhound, if your head isn't full of frogsquinkers, buzzwangles, and bugwhiffles, then you'll soon understand why "upgoing bubbles is a catasterous disastrophe."
From The Book
"Here is the repulsant snozzcumber!" cried the BFG, waving it about. "I squoggle it! I mispise it! I dispunge it! But because I is refusing to gobble up human beans like the other giants, I must spend my life guzzling up icky-poo snozzcumbers instead. If I don't, I will be nothing but skin and groans.
Plot Summary:
One night when Sophie can't sleep, she goes to the window of her orphanage and sees a giant walking down the street, blowing something into the windows. When the giant sees her, he grabs her and takes her back to his desert cave home.
There he explains, in his strange and garbled English, that he was blowing dreams into the minds of children, and that the other giants who live in the desert -- and are twice his size -- eat children all over the world. He, though, is the Big Friendly Giant (BFG), and eats nothing but disgusting snozzcumbers. But when the other giants head to England to eat children, Sophie hatches a plan, involving dreams, the Queen of England, and the BFG, to stop them once and for all.
Related Books:
Other Books by Roald Dahl
Boy
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
Danny, the Champion of the World
Esio Trot
Fantastic Mr. Fox
George's Marvelous Medicine
James and the Giant Peach
The Magic Finger
Matilda
The Minpins
The Twits
The Witches
Skin and Other Stories
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ViolenceThe giants eat children and bully the BFG. |
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Message |
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Social Behavior |
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CommercialismSoda brands mentioned. |
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