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Roald Dahl (1916 to 1990) was a British author, mainly of children’s books. He was known for his ingenious plots and off-the-wall thinking. There were many grim events in his childhood and with his own children. In spite of this or perhaps because of it, he became known for his humorous books. Some of his most famous books were The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, and the book to be reviewed here, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, published in 1964 in the US, is an amazing book – not perfect, but amazing. Roald Dahl had a wonderful, if not a little bizarre, imagination. The hero, Charlie Bucket, is a good boy but lives in a very poor family, consisting of Charlie, his parents, and their parents, seven in all. The description of their poverty makes one really feel their situation. However, they are a happy family who care for each other. Charlie wins a special trip to go inside Willy Wonka’s incredible chocolate factory, along with four other children, and his life is changed forever once he enters on his factory tour.
One wouldn’t think so, but this novel almost reads as a morality tale, since the other four children each have a besetting fault that causes them to have, well, problems in the factory tour. However, the morality lessons are given in page-long sarcastic poems sung by the Oompa-Loompas, Wonka’s small but happy and intelligent (and good at rhyming caustic comments) workers. For one example, those parents who fear, and rightly so, that today’s children look at computer screens too much instead of reading good books, will be pleased with the events that surround Mike Teavee, a little boy who spends all day doing nothing else but watching television.
The illustrations add to the wonder of the story, which is written at a reading level of upper elementary school. But Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the kind of book that is enjoyable by any age.
There is one last thing to note. The Great Glass Elevator is introduced in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and is a lot of fun but becomes the focus of the action in the sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. I have said many times that one of the strongest impulses in readers, after reading a good story, is “then what happened?” However, sometimes a sequel to a great book is at best mediocre. That is my opinion in this case but you can read it for yourself and see. Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator is mainly just silly, not very funny, and lacks the warmth of feeling that gives Charlie and the Chocolate Factory its emotional depth.