James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

First published: 1961; illustrated

Subjects: Friendship, the supernatural, and travel

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Fantasy

Time of work: The early 1960’s

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Southern England, the sky over the Atlantic Ocean, and New York City

Principal Characters:

• James Henry Trotter, a boy who is forced to live in slavelike servitude with his aunts after the death of his parents
• Sponge, and
• Spiker, James’s cruel and greedy aunts, who live on an isolated hilltop in southern England
• Ladybug, one of the travelers, who is afraid that every incident will precipitate total destruction
• Old-Green-Grasshopper, the wise elder of the group
• Miss Spider, a polite traveler who defers to James’s opinion whenever a decision is needed
• Earthworm, a crybaby who is constantly fearful because he is blind
• Centipede, a bully and loudmouth who causes dissension during the flight
• Glow-worm, and
• Silkworm, minor characters

Form and Content

James Henry Trotter is a four-year-old who lives by the sea with his gentle and loving parents and is free to play in the sand with his many companions. One tragic day, his parents are gobbled up by a rhinoceros that escaped from the London Zoo. James’s home is sold, and he is sent to live with his aunts, Sponge and Spiker, on a remote hilltop, geographically as well as emotionally distant from his idyllic past.

The main story of James and the Giant Peach actually begins three years later with a much-altered James. Instead of a happy-go-lucky toddler, he is now a slave to his selfish and self-centered aunts. James is beaten regularly, deprived of food, isolated from other children, and forced to do all of his aunts’ work.

One beastly hot summer day, James chops wood for the kitchen stove and his aunts lounge in the shade drinking lemonade. The child recalls the days when his parents were alive and his life was full of love and friendship. James is startled by the appearance of a tiny man who hands him a bag of what appear to be sparkling green crystals. Upon closer inspection, James discovers that the minuscule particles are in motion. The elf tells James that they are magic that will transport him away from his dreadful life if he will only follow directions. In his haste to do as the elf has instructed, James trips and spills the crystals at the base of an old peach tree. He tries to recover the lost magic, but the wormlike particles burrow into the earth as quickly as James reaches for them.

Within twenty-four hours, the tree has produced an enormous peach that draws crowds from nearby towns. Reporters document the miraculous occurrence, and the aunts begin charging admission to see the peach. Amid all the hubbub and melee, Spiker and Sponge forget about James, locking him out of the house when they retire for the night. He is drawn to the peach and finds a tunnel in the fruit that leads to a door opening into the peach stone. When he pushes on it, James finds himself in a beautifully furnished room occupied by talking insects that are the size of large dogs: Ladybug, Old-Green-Grasshopper, Miss Spider, Earthworm, Centipede, Glow-worm, and Silkworm.

After each of the magically transformed inhabitants greets James, Centipede completes his job of gnawing through the stem of the peach, and the adventure begins. A series of near disasters follows from the moment that Centipede detaches the peach from its tree. The travelers experience two bumps when the enormous peach flattens Sponge and Spiker, but it gains momentum and continues rolling down to the sea. The cliffs of Dover cannot harm the peach, but a school of sharks poses a significant threat. James devises a scheme to attach threads, spun by Miss Spider and Silkworm, to seagulls, which will then hoist the peach and its occupants out of harm’s way. Transported by 502 birds, this fantastic inverted hot-air balloon begins its voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.

Soon, other dangers confront the crew. Centipede hurls insults at a colony of Cloud-Men, who pitch hailstones back at him. Another group of Cloud-Men, in charge of painting rainbows, attacks the Peach when it crashes into one of their masterpieces, spilling a bucket of purple paint onto Centipede. A torrential storm nearly drowns the group, but all survive and Centipede is thrilled because he is cleansed of the purple paint. The ultimate tragedy occurs when a four-engine airplane soars through the mass of silk threads and detaches the peach from the flock of seagulls. Luckily, James and his friends are over New York City, where the Peach impales itself on the spire of the Empire State Building.

The adventure ends with a ticker-tape parade through the streets of Manhattan. Each of the wanderers finds happiness in New York—especially James, who is free to play with his multitude of new friends.

Critical Context

James and the Giant Peach is a modern classic that has established a permanent position in children’s libraries. Roald Dahl frequently commented that he owed his writing success to the bedtime stories that he created for his own children, and this book reads as if the author were telling a remarkable story to a group of children sitting at his feet. The book maintains this chatty feeling throughout, which makes it a perfect read-aloud choice. Chapters are short and frequently end with cliffhangers that leave the reader, or listener, begging for more.

These attributes, and the delightful illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert, afford a sense of accomplishment for reluctant readers. For the same reasons, the book accommodates younger readers whose attention spans allow them to attempt chapter books. As a combination of fantasy and fairy tale, James and the Giant Peach provides a gratifying introduction into more difficult fantasies such as C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956), Robert C. O’Brien’s Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1971), or Lynn Reid Banks’s The Indian in the Cupboard (1981).