Common Sense Note
Vividly described, highly whimsical events, accompanied by clever sketches, but the story is a pale shadow of the original. Highly descriptive, even, at times, invented language. References to the Cold War.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Stephany Aulenback
This zippy tale is enjoyable enough, but it doesn't live up to the promise of Roald Dahl's first tale of Charlie Bucket's adventures with Willy Wonka. The main problem is that the story just isn't as timeless as the first. Surely adults will recognize the sly satire of the American space program and the Cold War of the early seventies, but children probably won't.
What is timeless, though, is Dahl's irreverent wit, and his irrepressible imagination. Children will be charmed when Mr. Wonka uses bad nonsense poetry to convince astronauts Shuckworth, Shanks, and Showler, and the gullible authorities back on Earth, that he is an alien invader. And readers will also be thrilled by the real aliens, the inventively named Vermicious Knids, who are horrifyingly stretchy egg-shaped creatures with disgusting "greenish-brown skin of a shiny, wettish appearance."
If your children haven't come across Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yet, make sure they read it first. And if they delight in Dahl's brand of zany humor, there are plenty more popular books by Dahl to choose from, including James and the Giant Peach. For more funny fantasy, try Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.
From the Book:
"We must go higher!" said Mr. Wonka. "We must go tremendously high! Hold onto your stomachs!" He pressed a brown button. The Elevator shuddered, and then with a fearful whooshing sound it shot vertically upward like a rocket. Everybody clutched hold of everybody else and as the great machine gathered speed, the rushing whooshing sound of the wind outside grew louder and louder and shriller and shriller until it became a piercing shriek and you had to yell to make yourself heard.
Plot Summary:
When we last saw Charlie, at the end of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he was sailing through the sky with his family in Willy Wonka's Great Glass Elevator. At the beginning of this sequel, the flying Elevator accidentally hurtles into outer space, where a Commuter Capsule is shuttling its passengers to the Space Hotel U.S.A.
The Capsule's astronauts mistake the Elevator's passengers for aliens. But there are real aliens inside the Space Hotel--slimy Vermicious Knids. Mr. Wonka, Charlie, and his family escape just in time, but some of the Capsule's passengers not so lucky--several of them are killed. For a while, it looks like the aliens will get them all. But Mr. Wonka uses the Great Glass Elevator to get everyone safely back to earth, where the President, a bit of a buffoon, invites them to the White House.
Related Books:
Roald Dahl Also Wrote
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
James and the Giant Peach
Books With Similar Themes
Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang by Mordecai Richler
Midnight on the Moon by John Scieszka
Fat Men from Space by Daniel Pinkwater
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