This weekend we had a quick road trip to take so we listened to James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. My older son swears I read this to him already, but my younger son was thoroughly enthralled (his interpretation is above). The audio version we listened to was an older one because the newest version is narrated by Jeremy Irons. I imagine that would be fantastic because he has got a great voice that can also be a little dark--remember Scar in The Lion King?
Anyway, as I listened to this book I was once again struck by the sheer brilliance of Roald Dahl. He was a genius. So many children's authors have been influenced by him, you can see it in their writing. We'd been listening for about a minute when we came upon the part where James' parents were eaten by a rhino in London. My son pipes up with "rhinos don't eat meat." I told him I knew that but you just have to go with it. Then we listen for about a half hour and he says, "I don't even think they have rhinos in London." To which I had to explain about it being escaped from the zoo, a part that he missed because he was taling about rhinos not eating meat. I just giggled about how his brain focused on the rhino issue and would not let it go.
We actually finished the whole thing on our trip and I have to say, the only thing that bothers me (and it bothers me every time I read it, but it didn't bother me until I was an adult) is that the cloud people were making all the weather...and they were over the middle of the ocean. Where were they sending the weather?
Great book, one of my all time faves!!
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