Just Finished Reading The BFG by Roald Dahl

The BFG, published in 1982, is the third Roald Dahl children's book I've read...after Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach.  The late Welsh writer had the most wicked sense of humor and remarkable characters in these sometimes macabre modern fairy tales and this latest reading is no exception...once again I found myself chuckling as I followed the story.  Sophie, a little girl living in an orphanage, one night looks out her bedroom window to see a tall shadow skulking down the street. Upon deeper examination she sees it is an incredibly tall man with a trumpet, which he loads with something from a glass jar and then blows into other bedroom windows.  Having extremely acute hearing, he eventually detects her, reaches in her room and spirits her back to his homeland where he and nine other giants live.  But Sophie's captor is friendly, as he identifies himself as the BFG, short for Big Friendly Giant, and unlike the others refuses to eat people...much to the girl's relief.  His abduction of Sophie was done to avoid her telling others of his and the other giants' existence...the idea of living like a confined zoo animal understandably frightens him.  So the two learn to live together as the BFG reveals his good nature as he struggles with the English language, making all sorts of comical mistakes with it...and tries to protect her from the other mean, bigger human-eating giants.  How does it all end? Quite royally, although to get the full gist of my words you'll need to read it for yourself...

Roald Dahl is now three-for-three with his children's novels...but I'm seeing them as an adult and I wonder whether some sensitive children might be subject to nightmares in this latest one with the talk about giants snatching people, even kids, from their beds and eating them up.  Then again, many if not most of the traditional fairy tales I grew up with were full of gruesome and violent imagery: maybe it serves some backhanded purpose in preparing them for this often dangerous and tragic real world they will be living through as adults.  Now on to the next Dahl book...