The BFG door Roald Dahl

1.
A
Author: Roald Dahl

B
The BFG, Jonathan Cape, Thirty Bedford Square London, 1982, 224 pages, (1982)

C
The book is a novel.

2.
A
I have chosen this book because I think Roald Dahl is a very good writer and he has written many famous books.
For example: Mathilda, Charlie and the chocolate factory, James and the giant peach and many others. Nearly everybody has read one of his books, so have I. But one of the books I hadn¡¦t read was The BFG, not in English but also not in Dutch. Many people said it is a very funny book and they advised me to read it. I haven¡¦t had much time to read it, but because I had to make a paper for English, I decided to read this book.

B

I really like the book; I think it¡¦s very impressive.
Maybe it sounds a bit funny, but it¡¦s such a strange story, I don¡¦t think I¡¦ll forget it soon.
When you have read some books of Roald Dahl, you¡¦ll recognise the characterises of his books. There are nearly always bad and good people. The good people win and will get a happy and good life and the bad people lose and learn their lesson. That¡¦s what I really like from his books and made me to read it.

3.
A Summary:
The book is about Sophie, an orphan who lives an orphanage in London. One day she couldn¡¦t sleep in the middle of the night, at the witching hour. Suddenly she froze; something tall, black and thin thing was coming her way. It had a trumpet-thing and a suitcase with him. Suddenly he plucked her from her bed and took her to Giant Country.
There he tells her he¡¦s the BFG and he¡¦s one of the ten giants in Giant Country. He¡¦s the only one who doesn¡¦t eat human beans.
He tells her also he took her with him because nobody may know there are giants living, because they¡¦re afraid human beans will kill them. And because of Sophie saw the BFG, she must stay in Giant Country forever.
The BFG catches dreams with his big ears and blow them into the faces of children, so they have nice dreams.
The other nine giants are asleep during the day and at night they go to all places in the world to eat children for their supper.
Sophie and the BFG hate the other giants, but because of nobody will believe her when she tells the police and everybody else about the horrible giants, they think up a plan to stop the giants eating human beans.

They make a dream for the Queen of England. It¡¦s a horrible dream; a terrible nightmare. It¡¦s about nine giants who eat children, about a big friendly giant, who blows nice dreams into the faces of little children and the dream ended with a little girl, called Sophie, who¡¦s sitting on the window-ledge. When the Queen wakes up she tells Mary, the Queen¡¦s maid, about the horrible dream. Then Mary opens the curtains and sees Sophie. Sophie tells the story about the giants and the dream. The Queen wants to help them and think up also a plan.
They call the Head of the Army and the Head of the Air Force. The BFG and Sophie go with nine helicopters and many soldiers to Giant Country. At the moment they come in Giant Country the giants are asleep. They tie up the giants with ropes and chains. One by one they were tied up. But the ninth was lying with his right arm tucked underneath his enormous body. The soldiers pulled at the huge arm. But suddenly the giant woke up and swept one of the soldiers up in his hand. He wanted to eat him. Sophie ran to the giant¡¦s feet and rammed her three-inch brooch into his right ankle. The giant flopped to the ground and clutched his ankle with both hands. And so the BFG tied his ankles and hands together.
The giants were tied up under the helicopters and they went back to London. There threw they the giants into a big hole. And the BFG and Sophie saved so all the people of the world. They built a house for Sophie near the palace of the Queen, and a bigger one for the BFG. The BFG began to write books, and one of them is this one.

B The techniques:
The writing stile of this book is distinctive for the books of Roald Dahl. There are nearly always good and bad people. The good ones win and will get a happy life and the bad ones will get punished and will learn their lesson. I haven¡¦t seen this writing stile before and I like it very much.
The story is timeless. You don¡¦t get to know when the story happens and not exactly about how many days. I think the story takes about a month, because the journey from London to Giant Country takes a few days and they go a few times to London and back. They are also for a few days in Giant Country, so I think it takes about a month.
The story takes place in the beginning in the orphanage and in the streets of London, and then they go to Giant Country and back to London again to the Queen¡¦s palace. Finally they go to Giant Country to prison the giants and take them to London where the story ends.
The leading characters are Sophie and the BFG.
Sopie is a nine years old orphan, who lives in an orphanage in London. Her parents died when she was a baby. The woman, who ran the orphanage, was called Mrs. Clonkers. Sophie hated her because when you did something bad, she locked you up in the dark cellar for a day and a night without anything to eat or drink.
The BFG is, as his name already says, a big friendly giant. He lives in a big cave in Giant Country. He¡¦s twenty-four feet high and has big ears, which he use to catch dreams. His usage is very bad. He always says, ¡§is¡¨ instead of ¡§are¡¨ or ¡§am¡¨. He also say words wrong. Example: ¡§ If you do go back, you will be telling the world,¡¨ said the BFG,¡¨,most likely on the tellytelly bunkum and the radio squeaker¡¨. He has got his a sort of own language.
The BFG is one of the ten giants in Giant Country. The other nine giants called:


„h The Fleshlumpeater
„h The Bonechruncher
„h The Manhugger
„h The Childchewer
„h The Meatdripper
„h The Gizzardgulper
„h The Maidmasher
„h The Bloodbottler
„h The Butcherboy
They all eat human beans. They all live in caves. They sleep the whole day and in the middle of the night they go to all places in the world to eat human beans.
The Queen of England is in this story a very nice person, who helps the BFG and Sophie to stop the bad giants and give Sophie new clothes and a home.
You don¡¦t get to know a lot about the Head of the Army and the Head of the Air Force. The only thing I know is that they wanted to kill those giants and that their soldiers are braver than they are, because when they had to tie the giants, the two Heads were sitting in their cars, because they were afraid of the giants.
The situations in the book are very good described and although the language of the BFG was very hard to understand, I could really good imagine in the things that happened.

The way of telling this story was really easy to understand. Sometimes the BFG said something, then Sophie or another person, and then the storyteller.
The only thing what was sometimes difficult, was the language of the BFG. He speaks a language that¡¦s full of puns. And because of I don¡¦t know many words in English, I often didn¡¦t understand what he meant.

C. The theme
I can¡¦t find an exactly theme in the book. I think this book is written to amuse people. The only theme I can find is shudder. This book is especially written for (little) children and for them it can be very scary, for example the big giants and when the giants are throwing the BFG on the ground and start kicking him can be scary. Another theme can be justice. The giants eat innocent people and the BFG and Sophie stop them and they save many people. Another theme in this book is to be alone. The little girl, Sophie, hasn¡¦t got parents and hasn¡¦t got a happy life.

D. The place in the history:
Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff, Wales, on September 13, 1916. His father died when Roald Dahl was four. After the boarding school, he didn¡¦t want to study, he wanted to travel. First he got a job by Shell and after that he went to Africa. In the Second World War he joined the army. After the Second World War he went to the United States and started writing. In 1943 he has written his first book. In 1944 he married an actress, they got five children. One died at a young age. Because of his children he started to write books again. The last thirty years of his life he has lived in an old farm near London.
He died at 23 November 1990 in London.
A few books of him are James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. This book is written in 1982. They nearly all got the same characterises. The good ones wins and the bad ones lose and got punished. They are all not typical for the time, because they are big fantasy stories and can be written at every year. But also read at every year and that¡¦s so good of this writer. He writes books you can read over hundred years again. They are timeless.

4.

Review

As most people said: it¡¦s a very funny book. It¡¦s full of fantasy. For example, giants, they don¡¦t exist, Giant Country, dream catching and many other things. It¡¦s such a strange story. It¡¦s a great book if you like to let your fantasy go.
It¡¦s easy to understand, there are no difficult words or long sentences. Only the way the BFG talks, his own language, is sometimes a bit difficult. Example: ¡§you is deaf as a dumpling compared with me!¡¨ You is hearing only thumping loud noises with those little earwigs of yours.¡¨
The book is also impressive. I think I¡¦ll don¡¦t forget it soon. Such strange things happened in the book; I haven¡¦t read things like that before. Even the other books of Roald Dahl are not such strange like this.
The thing I really like from the book, and also many other books of Roald Dahl, is that the good ones wins and the bad ones will get punished. That makes the stories funnier. Because I don¡¦t really like books with an unhappy end, for example when somebody dies at the end or a relationship breaks up.
The moment that Sophie and the BFG tell eachother who they are and what happened to them in their lifes means a lot to me:¡§I cannot help thinking about your poor mother and father. By now they must jipping and skumping all over the house shouting ¡¥Hello hello where is Sophie gone?¡¦¡¨
¡§I don¡¦t have a mother and father,¡¨ Sophie said.
¡§They both died when I was a baby.¡¨
This sentence means a lot to me, because I¡¦ve known a lot of children without a mother and a father. My parents are deforced, that¡¦s not so hard as that but it feels a bit the same.
The moment Sophie was taken away from her home was a bit strange to me, although it¡¦s just a fantasy story. I can¡¦t imagine how it feels and how it is to see never your parents again. Also the thing Sophie hasn¡¦t got parents and she never knew them, I can¡¦t imagine that I have no parents and that she don¡¦t miss them.
This book is really different from other books of Roald Dahl. But characterises are just the same as in all the other books.

The main theme in this book is to be alone. The little girl, Sophie, hasn¡¦t got parents or other people who are nice to her. Until she meets the BFG, and they become very good friends. After their plan, which saved all the people in the world, some people built a house for them and they meet more friends. It¡¦s a happy end and I like that.
The usage is very easy. That¡¦s because this is a book for children, so they don¡¦t use difficult words and long sentences. That made all people can read it, even if your English is not so good.
I like this book very much. And I recommend the book to everybody. It¡¦s a book with another sort of story. It¡¦s also different than the other books of Roald Dahl.

Assignment 1:

Dear editor,

The book The BFG is a very nice book, but I want you to know I don¡¦t like it, how the people react to each other. At first I don¡¦t like it the BFG took Sophie from her bed, although she had a terrible time there in the orphanage. Just imagine she had parents, and they loved her very much. You can¡¦t take a child to your home just like that. And then there is the head of the orphanage. What she did to those little children is so mean. You can¡¦t do that to them. They have already much sorrow in their lifes. They don¡¦t have parents, they don¡¦t have brothers or sisters and then you also have a mean mistress. They don¡¦t deserve that. What those giants did is also very bad. They were eaten innocent people. Why don¡¦t they eat, just like the BFG, snosscumbers. It¡¦s not so delicious but it¡¦s so rude to eat people. Just imagine that your parents, brother, sister or friends are dead. You¡¦re gonna be so angry with that, because you miss them and you want them back. It¡¦s not fair to do these things to people because of you like to eat them.
Yes, the giants aren¡¦t nice but what the Head of the Army and the Head of the Air Force wanted to do wasn¡¦t also really fair and nice. They wanted to kill the giants too, because of the giants has killed hundreds of people. But fortunately the Queen of England is a very nice person. She said: ¡§I do not approve of murder¡¨. ¡§But they are murders themselves!¡¨shouted the Head of the Army.¡¨ ¡§That¡¦s no reason why we should follow their example,¡¨said the Queen.
Fortunately the Queen made this intelligent decision, because I don¡¦t like it when people want to murder somebody or each other. You have to live with respect for each other and respect how they think or what kind of believe they have. I hope this letter will convince the people who didn¡¦t respect other people before.