James and the Giant Peach

The story is a timeless classic and deserves to be. Every kid should have this book on their shelf. I'm taking three stars off for two things that are particular to this edition that make it a truly horrible rendition of this book. First, I ordered a hardcover edition of this book, and it is technically a hardcover. But it happens to be a hardcover the size of a typical paperback. Even worse someone thought it would be a great idea to print the text in peach colored ink, making reading it very difficult and without getting headaches. Total garbage.

I have fond memories of reading this book as a child, and I wanted to share that with several of my nieces and nephews. The book arrived on time and the cover is lovely. I will mention though that the book does have some sort of harsh language in it; the two mean aunts call James some rude things, and there are three instances of the curse word a** being used. Given that it says right on the cover that this book is for ages 7+, I wasn't expecting that.

This book was fine (I love the story and I was reading it to my daughter) until I got to page 26... where it skips to page 59. Somehow pages 27-58 are not included (anywhere else in the book). Of course I had this experience adter the “amazon return window closed” so I’m out of luck. I didn’t think to makes sure all the pages were included in a new book! Buyer beware!

Many of us are familiar with this story so I am going to comment on how I used it. My husband reads to our son at night. He has a short attention span but we want him to get longer books to build his comprehension. This book is great because it is engaging, but the short chapters make it easy to read only a small section each night. My son loves "peach book."

This is one of my favorite Roald Dahl stories. We often forget the source material when we see the movie, but that said, I think James and the Giant Peach is one of the most consistent adaptations from the Dahl catalogue. What you read in the book is of the closest I've seen on film.Adaptations aside, this one gets top marks for being fun, quirky, creative, smile inducing, sweet, and enjoyable. All the characters are fun and interesting, from the mean aunts to the insect menagerie of companions James has by a fortuitous accident. This is not a book that will ever stress you out and quite often makes you chuckle at the sweet and silly things the insects say. It is also a redeeming journey for James, who had always been told he was worthless, in his journey to showing that he is truly a hero. It's a subtle message but an important one for people of all ages, and for me on a personal note: at times you are a hero or worthless depending on the context and the people who are around you. I think that's an extremely valuable life lesson and something anyone can appreciate.Pacing is fun, writing is very Dahl-ish and it's a book I'd happily re-read for myself or read to a classroom given the opportunity.

Absolutely appalled by the story line: kids’ parents die, kid is abused and bullied by his aunts. How can this book be possibly recommended for children?! I read a few pages and had to put it away as I could no longer go on. It goes straight to trash tomorrow.

Open this edition and you will find the text is peach colored! That makes it hard to read not only for parens, but also for children who might want to read it too, or might be inspired to do so one day after hearing it read to them ... which, after all, is the point of the exercise. But why should this agitate me so? For two reasons. First, the primary and unbreakable rule of typography in book design is that it should be legible! We should never struggle to decode what is printed on the page. Here, the pale, peach-tinted ink -- set off against the off-white, cheaply pulped page -- fails the text miserably. Second, the magnificent illustrations of Sir Quentin Blake suffer too from the reduced gradations of tone that resent from the tinted inking. And, to add insult to injury, this edition is called "deluxe."

My son (5 yrs old) and I really enjoyed this book. He loved the thoughts of a giant peach being carried around by seagulls. I highly recommend this for parents looking to find books that will engage and interest their children. With these short novels, my son has finally found something he loves in the reading world. Roald Dahl has opened up his imagination and now he loves nothing more than to write his own little books...most of which have plots similar to the Dahl books we have read.Now we will watch the movie and compare the two!

Read this to my son when he was in hospital after he was first born.. made me very happy as we named him after this book.

This is a nice A4-ish size book, which i prefer to the smaller size paperbacks. The illustrations are fab as always as is the story, the bigger book just makes it easier for us all to get a good look at the pages at bed-time!

I bought this book, James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, for my 7 year old Grandson. He's a big fan of Dahl books and loves reading. A great purchase and a happy Grandson.

Roald Dahl's style has you entering into the character's shoes and living out his experience like it's your own, especially in this book and his other classic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If you loved that one you'll like this too, and if you liked this one you'll love that one.One of the advantages of having children is that you get to enjoy reading the children's classics again, and pick up the subtleties you missed the first time.Read to your kids, it's good for them and for you, and I'm addressing you dad's out there!

One of my favourite books growing up. Wanted a new version