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sassmistress's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
5.0
This book is absolutely entrancing! 5 stars! I remembered loving it as a young child and picked it up to read again. I didn't remember any of the content, but it feels every bit as marvelous as it did back then.
Best of all is the crystalline, childlike imagination the book is full of. Dreams float around like butterflies and the Big Friendly Giant (BFG) collects them in jars to give away to sleeping children. A butler has to creatively solve the problem of serving a 24-foot giant formal breakfast with the Queen in her ballroom. How do we make a giant table, and what will he use for a fork?! The descriptions are beautiful and so evocative and just spark a sense of wonder. It's full of delight and amazement, but also danger and excitement, along with playful language. If you like the poem The Jabberwocky, this book reminds me of that.
I also love how cohesive this work is. It's so easy for authors to fall into an episodic adventure where only a few threads tie the ending back to earlier parts in the book, but this one feels so intentional with natural transitions. The BFG doesn't eat humans like the other giants, so what does he eat? A repulsive vegetable called a snozzcumber. It's on the table for Sophie to hide in when another giant appears. It comes up a lot, the BFG is convinced to dine with the Queen when told the fare is far better, and the giants they capture at the end must eat snozzcumbers in their prison pit. This is just one of many; it feels as if every line in the book is intentional and nothing is wasted.
Best of all is the crystalline, childlike imagination the book is full of. Dreams float around like butterflies and the Big Friendly Giant (BFG) collects them in jars to give away to sleeping children. A butler has to creatively solve the problem of serving a 24-foot giant formal breakfast with the Queen in her ballroom. How do we make a giant table, and what will he use for a fork?! The descriptions are beautiful and so evocative and just spark a sense of wonder. It's full of delight and amazement, but also danger and excitement, along with playful language. If you like the poem The Jabberwocky, this book reminds me of that.
I also love how cohesive this work is. It's so easy for authors to fall into an episodic adventure where only a few threads tie the ending back to earlier parts in the book, but this one feels so intentional with natural transitions. The BFG doesn't eat humans like the other giants, so what does he eat? A repulsive vegetable called a snozzcumber. It's on the table for Sophie to hide in when another giant appears. It comes up a lot, the BFG is convinced to dine with the Queen when told the fare is far better, and the giants they capture at the end must eat snozzcumbers in their prison pit. This is just one of many; it feels as if every line in the book is intentional and nothing is wasted.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death and Gore
Minor: Death of parent
- The first 25 pages or so may be frightening, so leave plenty of time for the first bedtime read. Sophie spots a giant down the street in the dark of night (described as "the witching hour" when "dark things" come out while everyone's asleep). He spots her, and reaches in the window to snatch her out of her bed while she's hiding under the covers. After he starts talking, you find out he's a friendly giant who doesn't eat people, so I'd recommend reading through that part before going to bed.- Other giants do eat people, though, and he talks about how different nationalities taste. People from Greece are greasy, the Japanese are smaller snacks, while "the Norway people and the Yankee-doodles is ever so much bigger". "A nice fat Esquimo to a giant is like a lovely ice-cream lolly to you." (The latter group prefers to be called Inuit.)
- Sophie lived in an orphanage--both parents died when she was a baby. And the woman who runs it is wicked.
- The BFG has a secret; Sophie says "I won't tell a soul... I swear it." The phrase "I swear" is used again in one other spot later in the book.
- The BFG doesn't speak correctly, and uses odd grammar, made up words, and twisty turns of phrase. This is contrasted, though, by Sophie's correct speech and she even corrects him for a while before she understands that he can't get his words out the way he means to. I do like that even though she is right, she realizes it's rude to keep correcting him. Part of the happy ending has him asking for help learning to speak better and even to write.
- The BFG lies to protect Sophie when another giant comes to eat her. He lies again to trick a giant they need to capture before he eats someone.
- There is a page or two about passing gas (aka "whizzpopping", as the giants call it, and they do not consider it rude as humans do). It comes up again when dining with the Queen, when Sophie tells him it is strictly forbidden and not polite, but he thinks the Queen told him it was okay. The Queen is slightly amused.
- There is detailed talk about giants snatching children out of their bed at night to eat them, and snatching them off the beach while they build sandcastles, or at a picnic, or off the city street. It manages to somehow be simultaneously absurd and matter-of-fact, so I imagine it should be fine for all but the most sensitive of children. That sort of content is often far more shocking to adults than it is to children. However, if you have a young or very sensitive child who has anxiety around bedtime or public outings, maybe wait before introducing this book.
- "human beans is the only animals that is killing their own kind"
- There is a difference between boy dreams and girl dreams. Sophie thinks one of the boys' dreams was silly, but the BFG said boys wouldn't think so.
- The BFG wanted a book but refused to steal it, so he only BORROWED it from the boy he was giving a dream to. Just for a short time, only 80 years, and will be returning it soon.
- Here's all the questionable language I could find: "The devil is dancing on my dibbler!", "by gumbo", "by gumdrops", "look at this godforsaken desert!"
- It is mentioned that 3 men drank too much and fell into the pit with the giants, who then ate them and crunched their bones.
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