Just Finished Reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

A couple of Saturday evenings ago I was sitting there as I usually do watching Jeopardy!, easily my favorite game show.  One of the categories stumped me: it just said "Roald Dahl".  I would quickly discover that this late Welsh novelist wrote a number of famous children's books, most notably James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Since I'd read none of his works nor seen any movie adaptions, I thought I'd take a little time and check them out.  My first Dahl book was his 1964 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...my first, immediate impression from it was that J.K. Rowling must have been inspired by Dahl's wit when she first set out to write her Harry Potter series, especially the parts showcasing the Dursley family that young Potter was forced to grow up with.  The setting is a small English town with an enormous chocolate factory...owned and operated by Willy Wonka, of course.  The Bucket family, comprised of young Charlie, his parents, and his four grandparents...the latter spending all their hours on a huge bed inside one of the small house's two rooms, are in dire financial straits after Charlie's dad lost his job screwing tops onto toothpaste tubes...starvation sadly seems to be in the works for them.  Meanwhile Willy Wonka, who had earlier fired all his workers for fear of industrial espionage and shut down his factory for a while, has reopened it and is once again producing the world's best chocolate...but apparently with no hired help.  And then he makes a startling announcement.  He has hidden golden tickets inside five of his chocolate bars...five children, along with their caretakers, will be allowed inside for a one-day tour of his plant and then get plenty of chocolate delivered to them for the rest of their days.  Since you already know the story's title, you can infer that Charlie gets to go...and my favorite character of the book, Grandpa Joe, accompanies him.  The other children are monumental brats, very much on the level of Rowling's Dudley Dursley character with comparable parents...let's see how clever Willy handles them...

I was pleasantly surprised by this very funny tale and look forward to seeing how the two movies will probably twist its tone and message completely out of shape.  I'd like to start out with the version starring Gene Wilder from 1972...Sammy Davis, Jr.'s hit song at that time Candyman, which I liked a lot, is part of the soundtrack.  The more recent version starring Johnny Depp as the enigmatic Wonka should be interesting as well...I wonder which movie will be more faithful to the book.  Now on to the next Roald Dahl book...at least after I've finished reading Stephen King's masterpiece novel 11/22/63 for the fourth time...