I have to admit that I bought this book for the illustrations. It was done by Quentin Blake. Another reason was that this book have been used for a lot of chorus competitions during my school days, but I have never read this. This book was printed in Japan and used for the TOEIC test reading.
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| Charlie and the chocolate factory |
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| the illustration |
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| the illustrations |
From the book, I knew that this book was first printed on 1964, the story centred around a boy named Charlie whose family was very poor and as luck would have it, Charlie won a golden ticket to visit the town's big chocolate factory owned by a Mr. Wonka. 5 kids got the golden ticket. Apart from Charlie, all came from well off family and being pampered so much by their parents. So, during the visit, the other 4 kids got themselves into trouble because they ignore Mr. Wonka words. So, Charlie won the race, Mr. Wonka decided to give him the chocolate factory as a gift as he did not have anyone.
However, I think the author was quite cruel to the other kids. Yes, they are mischievous, but they are pampered by their parents all the time, not every kids can grew up in that kind of environment and became an angel. Charlie on the other hand, due to his humble background, he was more understanding and grateful. Family played a big part in children's development too.
Despite the book was first published in 60s, I mean, 'wow, so many years ago, Dahl could imagine the transportation through molecules disintegration, and combine back later already. Almost like in a scene from Star Trek.' (A boy from the book loves to watch tv too much and his mischievous way landed him into trouble and got shrunk by the Wonka's TV and after that, being overstretched). Mr. Dahl certainly was very imaginative and think out of the box.
In this book, the workers in the factory were a colony of Oompa-Loompas. The songs they sing in the book were used in chorus competition quite often, it ended with a rhyme. Not bad!
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