A Blog Full of Goodness

I've looked at my list, by now I should have read and reviewed 31 books. When I checked this morning my current number was only 24. So, in a bit of a panic I looked at my available resources. What could suit for a quick and easy read? That is when I remembered this.

Recently I was invited to read this book to a year 4 class. The challenge was to get through the whole book inside of a week. Sadly I failed, we just couldn't dedicate enough time to reading all of the 360 plus pages.

But I thoroughly enjoyed going through the BFG journey with the children, having loved the first film adaptation (which was brilliantly voiced by David Jason) and knowing they'd all loved the more recent Spielberg/Rylance version.

The BFG has a massive universal appeal; a recent article from the BBC claimed that the BFG was the second most popular Roald Dahl book in the world, being surpassed by that very famous book about a poor boy and a chocolate factory. 

For those who have not encountered the story, it centres on a little girl (Sophie) is snatched from her place at a grotty orphanage by a very large giant who takes her back to his own world. There she is made to see the incredible job he does, catching dreams and mixing them together to create the perfect dream for a child, which he feeds to children via a large, trumpet looking device. 

There is also the issue of the bigger, bullying giants who eat children like hors d'ouevres. Sophie can not stand to see the injustice, and helps to concoct a plan to save human children and put away the other giants for good. 

The wonderful thing about this story is the dialogue, particularly from the BFG. Mr Dahl managed to play with and create new words in a way that no other author has done before or since. The only other author to come close was the late, great Spike Milligan. There is something about the way the word wangdoodle or vermicious knit that rolls pleasantly off the tongue and sticks in the head. Dahl's use of made up words and command of language allowed him to easily blend in complex vocabulary. It is a rare thing to see the word perpendicular used in informal story writing! 

The downside of the book is that there is a lot of filler, there are several scenes that feel like they don't really need to be there, such as (and I hate to say it) the whizpopping scene at the table (which actually sounds like a bit of a But in defence of that it was written and published at a time when attention spans were a little greater and stories could afford a little less of a rapid pace. 

The story itself is ingenious, a very original plot with charming characters that you feel for. I've since seen Sophie's origin story provide the setting for characters in more than a dozen modern stories. Recently I read a David Walliams book which had a girl who was almost an exact replica of Sophie. Such has been Roald Dahl's profound impact on the following generations. Whilst the themes and some of the scenes are a little too dark for younger children, the overall flavour of the book makes it ideal for children aged around 8 and upwards, especially advanced readers who can read the book independently. 

I conducted my own little survey, asking friends and family what their top 5 Roald Dahl books were, I was amazed to see how many different books came into the lists. Here, by popular vote, were the top five: 

1) Matilda

2)The Twits

3) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/The Twits/The Witches

4)Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

5)The Witches

Whilst the BFG didn't make the popular vote, it didn't miss out by much. It came one vote behind the 1st and 2nd place titles. This is book 25 of my 52 and my book that was turned into a movie (twice). I'm off to go have me some whizpopping fizzy drink. 

Book Title: The Bfg
Author: Roald Dahl
Illustrator: Quentin Blake
First published: 1982
Number of Pages: 360
Suitable for: children aged 8 and upwards
Interesting words: grotesque, duty, trussed, efficiently, petrified, reverse, colossal, shemozzle (yes its a real word), errand, perpendicular 

* https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37336976

Don't...ever...fall asleep.

So I've slipped again, after catching up with 5 out of the 7 books I needed to read and having read a 6th, I was on a proper roll.

But then came the return to a ludicrous pace in work and with that, a blog post that never happened, until now. 

With Halloween fast approaching and the leaves on the trees morphing through their colours as they slowly wither and die this seems the perfect time for a return to something scary. 

I happened across this as a suggested read from my local online library and with a tag line like that I was thrown back into the days of my adolescence, where nursery rhymes were sung in horror movies for dramatic effect.

The plot is about a group of kids on a school residential in a place called Crater Lake, so named because a body of water had built up inside of an impact crater. Once there things start to happen, horrible, terrible things that defy explanation.

Our main protagonist must lead a small group of survivors to a possible means of escape before confronting the nightmare that has taken over the lake. But not before the group make some unsettling discoveries about themselves and each other.

The writing feels very basic, as though the author really wanted us to feel like we were in the shoes of the main character. That turns out to be quite a good thing too as the book is written in the first person. 

For a book that is written so simply there is a surprising range of vocabulary in there. On the surface we are made to feel like we're reading a book fit for 8 year olds, but the appearance is a deception as some of the vocabulary would be challenging for younger children.

At 252 pages it moves at quite a fast pace, I was able to plough through it in a single afternoon.. The chapters are short so it never feels like a hike from one chapter to the next and the characters are very vivid, which is where the book really shines. There is one teacher featured who I'm pretty sure exists in every single school! And she's the scariest thing ever! 😂

The book has more of a Sci fi vybe than a horror one, but that doesn't stop it from having moments of tension that make your hair stand on end. 

This is book 24 out of 52 and my scary book. 

Book Title: Crater Lake

Author: Jennifer Killick

First Published: 2020

Number of pages: 252

Suitable for: children aged 9 and up

Interesting words: Hallucinating, Pesky, 

Vendetta, Jurisdiction, Pheremone, Simeltaneously, Emerge, Aesthetically

Hybrids, Imbecile, Reverberating