EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club discussion

This begins our group discussion of our Classics book selection, James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, nominated by Renata.

This discussion will be full of SPOILERS.

Did you enjoy the book? What stood out to you? Dahl’s writing style is known for its mixture of darkness and whimsy—how well do you think that worked in this book? What questions were you left with?

The aunts were the worst especially for what is a kid’s book! This surprised me.

The book is a lot darker than the movie. Its like comparing a peach to a pumpkin or The Wizard of Oz to Return to Oz. It does make you wonder how much was expected of children back then.

Taz wrote: "The book is a lot darker than the movie. Its like comparing a peach to a pumpkin or The Wizard of Oz to Return to Oz. It does make you wonder how much was expected of children back then."

This is probably TLDR, but here I go.

When I was a child 65 years ago, we ran about without supervision every day after school and weekends in a blue-collar Seattle neighborhood, which was and is within a medium-size city. Today, parents are being called “helicopter parents”, among other things because many parents track and drive their kids everywhere all day and night. I didn’t walk miles to school, but I did walk a mile to my elementary school and back to home when I was 6 years old in all kinds of weather, crossing busy city streets. Most of my peers did also. I had the house key on a chain around my neck, and a bracelet around my wrist with my name, address and phone number - which was as far as many parents of elementary children went in “watching” their kids 24/7. I was never checked by parental concern in what I was reading, or what my homework was, or who my teachers were, or what I was learning in class. We walked everywhere, or took the bus, or rode our bicycles. I rode my bicycle everywhere for miles, with a young elementary school girlfriend, to parks, downtown, other city neighborhoods. Without permission because I never needed to get it if it was the weekend. Parents sort of kicked their kids out of the house “to play” back then, without really seeming to care if their kids were gone for hours. They did care if the school called about a concern, so we kids learned not to do anything that might bring that about. But a lot of parents in my blue-collar neighborhood never graduated from high school because of World War II and the Great Depression. Teachers scared them. Many parents had full time jobs at age 16 or 17, so I guess parental skills weren’t exactly something social media taught them, but instead it was more of them doing what their parents did, who were primarily farmers or factory workers or fishermen or loggers or miners. Medical insurance was not a thing until the mid-1960’s, and then available in large companies like Boeing. People had to doctor themselves and move along, so, yeah, I do think adults perhaps were tougher minded, and more aware of blood, pain, death, loss of limb and life.

It is possible lower middle-class parents of the 20th century weren’t as worried about their kids as they are today, I don’t know. But we certainly got into various dangerous situations our parents never knew about. A child molester went after my younger brother when we went to a Saturday movie matinee by ourselves of course. I rescued my brother. I was ten years old. I didn’t know what the man wanted, but I knew he was a bad man, and I acted to push him away and we moved to a different seat in the theater. We didn’t want to miss the movie! I never told my parents.

My family was small, but most families had a lot of kids, and the more kids there were, the less parents hovered or supervised. However, I do know we were expected to take on more responsibilities for ourselves to take care of ourselves - getting to school, dressing ourselves, eating and cooking after school because parents were at work, etc., at an earlier age then I see today around me. Of course, we ate crappier foods and snacks (white bread, processed meats, sugar drinks, chips), ran around with “bad” kids we invited into our homes, played loud music, drove parents’ cars before they came home from work, stole parents’ alcohol and cigs. Many middle-class parents ate what would be considered crappy food generally, and had it around for themselves and their kids’ meals and snacks.

In the 5th, 6th and up grades we were reading books for Language Arts and other classes as required reading that today kids are literally forbidden to even know about today. In junior high, or middle school, we read books with violence, swearing, sex, murder, race prejudices, war violence, gang violence - all not real graphic, but definitely stuff that I see today many parents do not want their children to see or even know exists in books. Back then, we discussed these issues in class, especially race violence, the Vietnam War, drugs. Teachers had the mandate to introduce and raise our consciousnesses to deal with adult situations more than our parents did, and to teach us ‘thinking’ skills, I guess. Did this affect us? Maybe. All I know is we didn’t carry guns and shoot up elementary school kids. The worst that happened between kids was bullying and fist fights. Drugs and addictions were mentioned in our required reading, but as far as I know it was pot that was actually around, and then only for those 13+ in some kid cliques. It was not as strong as what is around today. I learned recently a relation of mine with his friends stole beer from his parents, beginning at 13, some began smoking cigarettes around that age too. But compared to the violence today, this all seems so minor now.

I do know we kids were better educated than our parents, but most of us learned life lessons with and by our peers, or teachers, not our parents, even if parents were smart and more learned in life lessons. I think parents thought we would pick up those life lessons on our own, basically, or school; none of them really seem to be stressed about imparting life lessons to us. Sesame Street did not exist as public television was very very primitive back then. TV was 6 stations, shutting down at midnight, black and white programming until the late 1960’s.

Yet, we were running around by ourselves, without supervision or guided activities, expected to take care of ourselves at elementary school ages. We resolved fights among ourselves, made friends by ourselves without any parent supervision or knowledge. Childcare was something neighbors did by occasionally looking out their windows noticing us kids running by, or playing with some ball or wrestling around.

We usually got married around 20, had kids and jobs by 25, and a house mortgage by 30, which meant we had to settle down and be responsible adults, making rules for ourselves and kids to maintain the family and a house and cars and a job, etc. Or not, which meant you were a scumbag and avoided. Marriage and kids was mandatory basically, heterosexual of course. Living with your parents at 21 was unthinkable. Of course, this was the lower to middle classes lifestyle, which we all were, or at least we pretended we were or we aspired to be. College was for the upper classes only, mostly.

I could be wrong, but I feel we were in the adult world faster than kids today. We certainly were reading more grittier and more adult books earlier and experiencing adult life earlier than many kids today. I am not sure life is any less gritty, but I think my generation experienced the grittiness earlier than many in the middle-class now. My parents and their peers certainly were aware of blood, death and the uncertainty and dangers of life having to deal with the Great Depression, World War II and being mostly farmers or loggers or fishermen or miners, most of them born in the early 1900’s when these “children” books like the Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan, from the 1800’s, were being circulated, when most kids went to the eighth grade and were working full time jobs at the ages of 16. No vaccines either. If people only knew how disease killed many kids back then! Most families had had a dead kid or two in the family at some point. Just saying.

Of course, spanking and worse was common for kids of my parents’ generation and mine. Punishment was strong and harsh in the home for doing any perceived wrongs, or just because a parent had a bad day. No one ever called police.

I found the book humorous. The aunts are bad, but that's readily apparent--no one's going to be confused about whether they should take moral instruction from them. James is a resourceful character and the story is oddball and riveting.

This is an odd little story. Certainly James was a clever thinker and got them out of their messes in creative ways. I think I would have enjoyed this more if I'd read it as a child. For example as an adult, the way the casual death of the aunts was handled seemed pretty awful, even though they were mean characters. I did like the idea of the cloud people who built weather machines and hail balls, and painted the rainbows then lowered them on strings; that was creative and whimsical.

Just finished reading it for the first time. I rather liked the dark humor. This also was a kind of research read as I'm on a hunt for a good chapter book to read to my 5 year old. Absolutely loved the Centipede- Earthworm chitchats, haha.

I keep trying Dahl and so far, the only book by him I've really liked was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I'm going to keep trying, but I'm afraid I should have read him when I was younger. I may be becoming too similar to the grumpy old aunts. LOL.

I think this book is best read out-loud to a 6-year old. Then it can be enjoyed through their eyes.
The wicked aunt's death by peach was a shocker though. Didn't expect to read that in a kid's book.

Wobbley wrote: "This is an odd little story. Certainly James was a clever thinker and got them out of their messes in creative ways. I think I would have enjoyed this more if I'd read it as a child. For example as..."

Not really a chapter book, but I enjoyed Grimm's Fairy Tales when I was 5. You can treat the individual stories like chapters and they are so classic that nearly every story has been turned into a movie your child can compare to the book. Example: After reading Snow White, I went to watch the Disney movie during which I repeatedly exclaimed " That's not what happened!" The Grimm brothers have a dark humor similar to James and the Giant Peach and they are public domain so you may be able to find a free copy. Grimm's Fairy Tales was my favorite book at 5 and one of the few works I reread as an adult.

I would also recommend The Jungle Book, Wizard of Oz, Charles Perrault Fairy Tales, Boxcar Children, Magic Treehouse, Carmon Santiago, Anne of Green Gables, Alice in Wonderland ( I recently read it to a 7 year old who loved it), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Personally, I love reading a book to a kid then cuddling up to watch the movie afterward as a celebration. I have also found it helps motivate discussion of the book giving me a more insightful reader who sometimes comes up with things I did not notice.

It would be cool to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory then contrast the two movies while comparing them to the book and munching on Wonka Bars.

This was my second children's book by Dahl after reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (also as an adult) and I loved it. To it contributed much of the fact that I listen as an audiobook.
It sure is very cruel in the beginning to the little boy, but the insects are great funny characters and James gets to see the ocean :)

The insects are definitely the stand-out characters for me. I do think if I had read Dahl as a child, that I would have enjoyed them more. I agree with a couple people that the death my peach was pretty casual but I think it’s kind of the thing they were taking advantage of (James and the peach itself) gave them their comeuppance.

I am in agreement with a couple of other readers that thought the aunts deaths were unnecessary. I really like the insects and thought James was very creative in his solutions to the problems they faced.
I am going to watch the movie and see how it compares.