Celebrate Your Freedom to Read - Include BFG on Your List
Written: Sep 24 '07 (Updated Sep 27 '07)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Humor, Heroine, Hope, BFG, Whizzpoppers, Nonsense language
Cons: Nonsense Language possibly confusing, some descriptions and the snatch too scary for young readers
The Bottom Line: A tiny girl and big friendly giant combine to rid the world of nine evil giants. This good vs evil story is one of the funniest available to elementary readers.
|
|
|
| pestyside's Full Review: The BFG Books |
Slicing through the darkness of the room was a silvery moonbeam also piercing through sleep possibilities. Young Sophie, an eight-year old orphan, couldn’t sleep and despite warnings, and threats of punishment, about getting up after bedtime, she couldn’t resist the opportunity to close the curtain and block the moonlight. As she crept over to pull the gap together she caught sight of movement outside on an otherwise completely quiet street. This was the witching hour, that moment at night when all sorts of eerie creatures came out…
Indeed, her eyes traveled the street below finding something black, tall, very thin and not human walking her way. It was taller than any human and taller than most houses. It stopped and looked in upstairs windows of each house it passed. It looked like a giant person, wearing a black cloak, carrying a long thin trumpet and toting a large suitcase. It stopped and did something in the window of the house across the street. She watched, she trembled, and she gave a yelp. The Giant turned and looked at her.
Roald Dahl’s book The BFG was written in 1982 and quickly became a classic for many families, being passed on to the next generation of children. At first this appears frightening, and indeed, the first time I read this I wondered how terrifying this might be for children.
After her yelp she hid in her room, under blankets as if to claim that yelp didn’t come from this sleeping child. “Sophie, crouching underneath the blanket, felt strong fingers grasping hold of her, and then she was lifted up from her bed, blanket and all, and whisked out of the window.” She soon realized her captor was running off with her, possibly to eat her for breakfast.
What follows is not a story about her being eaten, but instead about meeting the Big Friendly Giant, the not-as-tall-as the-others giant. When he finishes running, she finds herself in an enormous cavern with walls of shelves loaded with rows and rows of glass jars. The jars happen to be filled with dreams that he collects and saves to distribute to children. (Some jars contained horrible nightmares that he kept to prevent them from harming children). This giant is a “professional dream catcher” and he is a vegetarian, unlike the nine anthropophagous giants that live next door to BFG. This giant, unlike his nine neighbors, refuses to eat human beans. But he has a lot of interesting rules, as well as a unique language.
BFG never went to school, such options weren’t provided for giants. He also had a lot of interesting abilities, likes and dislikes. For example, his rather large ears could hear all the secret whisperings of the world as well as the feet of a ladybird going clumpety-clumpety-clump across a leaf. He could hear ants chittering to each other.
Sophie learned that BFG had a sensitive nature. He could hear plants screaming if someone twisted the stem of the flower. He could also hear the tree if he were to chop an ax into the trunk. If I is chopping an ax into the trunk of a big tree, I is hearing a terrible sound coming from inside the heart of the tree…A soft moaning sound…It is like the sound of an old man is making when he is dying slowly.
She also learned he didn’t eat anything but snozzcumbers (a revolting vegetable that was about 8 to 12 feet long) nor drink anything except Frobscottle (a bubbly beverage similar to colas). The bubbles of Frobscottle did not rise to the surface, but instead sank, and in doing so had the most amazing (and really humorous) affect on the body. Rather than causing belches, it caused whizzpoppers.
Of the giants, BFG was by far the shortest and he had to avoid them when possible. The nine went out into the distant lands of the world, every evening, to find human beans to eat. They picked on BFG and bullied him, teasing him about his not eating human beans. Sophie heard horrifying descriptions of each giant: Fleshlumpeater, Bonecruncher, Manhugger, Childchewer, Meatdripper, Gizzardgulper, Bloddbottler, Maidmasher, and Butcher Boy. When she learned they were headed for England she knew something had to be done and this required BFG's assistance.
Creative use of BFG’s stored dreams, help fromthe Queen of England and her air force combined to help identify a way to end this terrorizing and reign of the human-bean eating giants. It was fortunate for Sophie that she was kidnapped by the world’s only benevolent giant.
About BFG
While teaching, I frequently shared this highly entertaining book with upper elementary level students. They loved it for a variety of reasons. The boys loved whizzpopping and flatulence being described as “glumptious music” and a feeling of ecstasy. They all enjoyed the nonsensical language developed by the giant. They cheered when the young orphan, Sophie, offered solutions to adults for putting an end to the giants terrorizing the land and chomping children. As a teacher I appreciated that this book became immediate hits with all of my readers, both slow and accomplished readers. I further appreciated that while BFG was illiterate and that he was self-taught and his skills were minimal, he was embarrassed by his lacking abilities. He wanted Sophie to teach him how to read, write, and speak and to be literate.
Regarding challenges, perhaps this book was challenged because of a focus on body function and encouraging acceptance of public flatulence. That was likely to make some adults squirm. Perhaps the challenges have come from this at first seeming scary, either by monsters or children being snatched from their beds. In today’s climate I can understand that concern. Or, perhaps adults in some communities were uncomfortable with a child challenging adults. I’m uncertain, but while my sons were far too grown up to read this fourth and fifth grade book, I couldn’t wait to share it with their children. Quentin Blake’s comical line illustrations capture the humor and fantasy of BFG. I particularly enjoyed the scene of Fleshlumpeater being tormented by BFG’s collection of nightmares (a mixture of trogglehumping bogthumping grobswitcher nightmares).
This book, a good verses evil story, empowers a young girl who becomes a hero. She finds a creative way to rid the world of the only remaining anthropophagous giants. I’ve used this tale to chase away nightmares and we’ve placed empty jars in the room, along with butterfly nets, to capture any unattended nightmares that might drift into the bedroom.
The BFG was one of Roald Dahl’s most popular books, and possibly one of the most popular elementary books. I’ve just re-read it for the umpteenth time and found it as enjoyable as the first. My recommendation, however, is for fourth grade and above, it's too descriptive for younger readers and the BFG-speak can be too confusing.
Since this can be read for pure enjoyment or for social comment, I recommend you read it first for the fun and to giggle, then if desired, return for deeper readings. You shouldn’t be disappointed either time.
This book is a contribution to both my Banned Books Week Write Off and to hadassahchana’s and dramastef’s Fight Illiteracy Write Off. I taught using this book in an extremely conservative part of the country and it was included on their list of accepted books and know from first hand experience that kids love this story.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.