Sally's Adolescent Novel 2/5

James and the Giant Peach

By Roald Dahl

Illustrated by Quentin Blake

James and the Giant Peach is another narrative by Roald Dahl which tells the story of James, a young boy who happily lived on the English seaside with his parents until they were tragically killed by a rhinoceros! James was then forced to go and live with his two horrid aunts, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. They treated James horribly. One day a strange thing happened, a giant peach began to grow, and it grew and grew until it was the size of a house. James decides to venture inside the peach where he meets a number of new friends including a grasshopper, a spider, a ladybug, an earthworm, a centipede, a glowworm and a silkworm. Together they escape James’s horrid aunts and embark on a great adventure in which they travel to New York.

This story has the ability to engage and challenge both young and older readers. Dahl creates a whimsical world throughout his stories and encourages the readers to use their imagination and challenges their literacy skills and comprehension through the language he uses.

Dahl engages the reader in the story through the descriptive language he uses in order to introduce and establish the characters and their personalities. This is particularly evident in the introduction of James’ aunts, as Dahl uses words which allow the reader to understand Aunt Spikes dominating, cruel, malicious nature. He uses language in order to describe her physical appearance by explaining she is tall and thin, almost emaciated, with steel glasses. Whereas Aunt Sponge physical appearance is the opposite, as Dahl describes she is a lazy, greedy, selfish, and morbidly obese woman, and equally as cruel and repulsive as her sister. This descriptive language allows the reader to truly understand who these women are and makes the reader truly despise them.

The language Dahl uses is exquisitely accompanied by the illustrations by Blake, as they beautifully depict what Dahl conveys in the text. Blake’s illustrations add humour and depth to text and allow the reader to truly visualize the story, which helps in holding the readers attention throughout the whole book.

An overriding theme throughout Dahl’s work, particularly between this text and the previously analysed BFG is the basic plots used. This text follows the same basic plots as The BFG, which are ‘overcoming the monster’ and ‘quest’ plot. This is demonstrated in this text as James must escape his evil aunts in order to begin his journey to New York. This displays a common theme throughout Dahl’s work, which is the idea of young children, both James and Sophie (The BFG) overcoming hurdles and beating the villains. This is a key idea throughout Dahl’s work which makes them favorites among both young and old, as he empowers young people by making them the ‘hero’ in the story.

This text presents several ideas and activities which could be integrated within the classroom. This includes the obvious links to literacy, as well as links with science through the insects which are characters in the book, drama as it could be created into a performance and art as the story and illustrations allow children to express themselves creatively.