Category: PNC:Anthro

James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl

James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl

Reason for Reading: To keep up with my nephew’s book reports

Genre: Children’s Adventure / Fantasy

Review
After the tragic death of his parents, James has been living with his horrible neglectful, hateful aunts Sponge and Spiker. One day James is given a magical bag by a mysterious stranger – and in his excitement he trips on the root of a peach tree and dumps all the magic on the tree. Soon a peach larger than a house has grown out of the tree. James crawls into the peach and begins the adventure of a life-time. 

This is another classic kids story that I read as a child and haven’t picked up since. I’m glad I had a reason to pick it up again, because it was really funny and silly and it had a lot of nostalgia for me. Dahl has just the right amount of humor and whimsy in his books. 🙂



After reading the book, my nephew and I watched the 1996 stop-action movie. It was a cute movie that followed the basic story-line well enough. But it was a bit too sentimental and it lacked the dark humor of Roald Dahl’s story. Cute for an hour’s entertainment, but nothing I’m going to watch again and again.  

Lone Wolf, by Kathryn Lasky

Lone Wolf

Written by Kathryn Lasky, Narrated by Erik Davies

Reason for Reading: I rather liked the Ga’Hoole books, so I thought I’d try this series out, too. 

Genre: Juvenile Fantasy / Anthropomorphism

Review
As an infant cub, Faolin was taken from his mother and abandoned to die. He was found by a bear who nursed him through childhood. Now as a young wolf, Faolin is once again on his own and he must find a way to rejoin his own kind. This was a cute little story, and I enjoyed it. But I don’t think I would have enjoyed it half as much if I hadn’t read the Ga’Hoole books first. Although the story of Faolin is independent of the three story lines in the Ga’Hoole series, Lasky’s world-building in this book was a bit dependent upon the other books. The world would have seemed confusing and frustrating to me if I didn’t already know all about it from the Ga’Hoole books. This is why I gave the book only 3.5 stars even though I thought it was really sweet. I will continue with this series myself, but I recommend to all of you – continue with this book if you loved the Ga’Hoole books as I did. But if you haven’t read the Ga’Hoole books, start there. 🙂