James and the Giant Peach Book Report

by Eric Begnaud

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Introduction

James and the Giant Peach was first published in 1961, and this edition was published in 1996. Copyright (__C__) 1961. Written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Lane Smith. Roald Dahl was born in Wales in 1916 and lived in England for his whole life. He wrote his first children's book (coincidently, this one!) in 1961 and has been writing ever since. He died in 1990. Lane Smith was born in Oklahoma in 1959. He has illustrated many books, and has not died yet.

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Characters

James is the main character in the story. He is a nice little boy of 7 whose nice little parents were eaten in 35 seconds flat by a nice little not-so-nice, big rhino that escaped from the London Zoo (don't ask). Since then, he has been living with his two very mean ants (Oops, I mean "aunts." Sorry!). Of course until that odd man gives him some odd green crystals. Then James trips and the crystals fall into the ground, where a peach starts to sprout from the tip of a tree. He climbs inside, and that is where the story truly begins...

Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge are James' two VERY mean aunts. They notice the peach growing on the tree and force people to pay money to see it. When the peach breaks free and rolls down the hill,

SPLAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They are crushed under its immense weight! Actually, it's for the better!

The old man gives James the odd green crystals. Nothing much else is to say about him.

The Old Green Grasshopper is a rather nice character. He is the oldest of the bugs and plays awesome music with his wings and legs.

The Ladybug is another nice character. She does not do much, but does tell James about what the Centipede was doing to start the peach rolling down the hill. She absolutely

HATES

fire.

The Centipede is more of a pest, and rather annoying at that. He is always complaining about his boots and lying about having one hundred legs instead of forty-two. He helps the peach start its journey by eating the stem and end it by biting some of the strings holding on to the seagulls, so it falls down on the Empire State building. Direct quote from "the Cloud-Man Incident":"1%10~$! #1#(0*^00^$! 8)3#%&45&@%$! @$$&$!"(otherwise known as "**bleep!** **bleep!** **bleep!** **bleep!**")

The Earthworm is a blind, well, earthworm! He is used as bait for the sharks other bugs seagulls and claims his skin is waterproof, though it really isn't.

Miss Spider is yet another very nice character. She helps the peach get out of the ocean by making the thread that tied the seagulls to the peach, with the help of the Silkworm. Not much else is to say about her.

I am not sure of much about __the Silkworm__, since she hardly says or does anything. She does, however, help Miss Spider by making some of the thread to capture the seagulls with. She is not that important to the story.

The Glow-worm is also not important to the story. All she does is sit around turning her light on and off. Really. I wish life could be as simple as that.

Cloud-Men are small (but not TOO small) creatures that are covered with white hair. They lead a peaceful life controlling the weather, but can be lethal if angered.

The President of the U.S.A. is of course, the leader of our country. ("__America the Beautiful__" plays) He tells almost everyone that the world's biggest bomb is about to blow up New York City. Come on, it was only the peach...

Book Summary

James is in the backyard chopping wood for Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge when a strange man appears out of the bushes. The man gives James a bag full of tiny green crystals, explains that if he does the right thing with them MARVELOUS things will start happening to him, and quickly runs away. While James was running back to the house to use them on himself he tripped and the bag split in half. All of the green crystals came tumbling out and sunk into the soil in less than two seconds. Almost immediately, a peach started to grow on a nearby peach tree. The peach grew bigger and bigger, even bigger than James' house! Spiker and Sponge came running out of the house to see it and thought they could be millionaires. They started forcing people to pay immense prices to see the giant peach, and indeed became miilionares.

At night, James crawled into a tunnel at the bottom of the peach that had misteriously appeared overnight. He followed the tunnel until it reached the pit inside the peach. He found a door carved in the side of the pit and crawed through. There he met the Spider, Earthworm, Silkworm, Glow-worm, Grasshopper, Ladybug, and Centipede. Miss Spider wove hammocks for everyone (extra-soft for the old Grasshopper) and everyone climbed into web bed. The next day, the Centipede was on top of the peach nibbling the stem of the peach. The stem broke and the peach started rolling away, crushing the Aunts flat as a couple of paper dolls from a book!

The peach careened down the hill and splashed down into the Atlantic Ocean. They were attacked by sharks, as the sharks had to live on fish and probably longed for a bit of giant peach. James noticed a bunch of seagulls flying overhead. The Silkworm and Spider started spinning thread and handed the thread to James. Using the Earthworm as bait, James captured all five hundred two seagulls and attached them to the peach’s stem. All of the seagulls started trying to fly away, taking the peach with them.

Much, much, MUCH later, they pas by a cloud. The cloud had hundreds of Cloud-Men on it (don't ask, I know it's corny) that are all working together to make hailstones. The Centipede called them 1%10~$, #1#(0*^00^$, 8)3#%&45&@%$, and @$$&$. He then makes insulting signs with forty of his legs (he stands on the other two), which, as you can imagine, infuriates the Cloud-Men. The peach, seagulls, and the inhabitants of the peach barely escaped without serious injury from hailstones. Get my point? Never infuriate a Cloud-Man. It could be lethal if you do.

The peach continues flying over the Atlantic Ocean until it finally comes to a stop in New York City overnight. Everyone thought the peach was a bomb that would go off at any minute and blow up half the state. When a passenger jet came by the plane's wings cut the seagulls loose and the peach plummeted down onto the Empire State Building, which miraculously happened to be right below it.

James and the bugs clambered out of the peach and when the fire department saw them, nine firemen fainted and the rest prepared to kill them. However, after James explained that they were actually very nice, they quickly came along with their fire truck and lifted everyone down. The crowd of people that were gathered around the peach got James’ permission to eat the entire thing, and did so happily after a crane carried down the peach. The pit was hauled to the place were James would live for the rest of his life, and so concludes this story.

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Book Review

This book was actually rather bad. Not TOO bad, just bad. I don't like it because it defies the laws of physics and is not logical. 502 seagulls could not lift a house. It would take over 800! Not all sharks have pointy noses. The whale shark and a few others have curved snouts. By the way, a cloud is just condensation of water droplets. One cloud could not support a thousand Cloud-Men, even if they existed. And I do belive that a bomb is not usually orange and fuzzy. The story was funny in about six places. If I would be able to see the movie, I would know that the movie would also be rather bad, mabye even worse. On a scale of one to ten, I would give it a six.

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Photos

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