The BFG (Big Friendly Giant)

Title: “The BFG”

Author: Roald Dahl                                                                         

Genre:  Fantasy                                                                                

Publisher: Penguin Group                                                           

Copyright Date: 1989

Pages in Book: 208 pages

Reading Level: 2-6 grade

Summary: Sophie is a sweet little girl who, one night cannot sleep. She peers outside of her window and sees a giant blowing something into children’s windows. Unfortunately he sees her, and reaches into her window and carries her off to Giant Country. Luckily Sophie was taken by the only kind giant that there was left, who secretly would blow good dreams into the windows of children. Because of his big ears, he would be able to hear the good dreams, and catch the bad dreams by either exploding them, or bottling them up. The Big Friendly Giant (or the BFG) must resort to eating snozzcumbers every day, due to the fact that he’s not like the other giants who feast on “human beans” every night. Sophie and the BFG decide that the mean giants are getting away with too much, and they create a cleaver plan, to make up a horrible dream for the Queen, informing her of what the giants are doing every night. Together, Sophie and the BFG sneak up to Buckingham Palace, and blow the dream into the Queens window. Upon waking, the Queen see’s Sophie sitting on her window sill, and agrees to talk to the BFG. They devise a plan, and the BFG takes the Sophie, the Queen, and her army to the place where the human eating giants live. All are asleep, so they tie them up, and fly the giants to London where the BFG unties them, puts them in a hole that they will never be able escape from, and feeds them Snozzcumbers for the rest of their lives as punishment for eating “human beans”.

Reaction: I thought this was such a cute book. How cleaver and unique it was. I especially liked how Roald Dahl used actual places to tell the story, such as London, Buckingham Palace, Sweden, etc. My attention was captured throughout this entire book, and I was able to thoroughly enjoy it.

Recommendation: Personally, I would recommend this book to children of all ages. It’s a book that is funny, entertaining, and one that children would be able to follow along with rather well.

Potential Problems/Conflicts: One problem that I could see is that when the children were to be reading this book, they might get frightened by the fact that there are human eating giants out in the world, and that they might be next. Granted, we know that it’s not true, but do the children?