Not usually my genre of choice but how can one resist a Roald Dahl book. James and his horrible wretched aunts! Loved his adventure with his new "friends" who just happen to be huge bugs! ( )

This review may not make any sense, because I'm pretty much unfamiliar with [a:Roald Dahl's|4273|Roald Dahl|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1311554908p2/4273.jpg] output, not having grown up with his books, but here I'm referring to the picture book version of the story: It's an abridged version of the original, marketed off the Disney movie and it has [a:Lane Smith|23573|Lane Smith|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1343416984p2/23573.jpg] as illustrator. The pictures are quite gruesome and grotesque of course, as is most of Lane Smith's stuff (I don't personally care for them), but a six year old can probably stomach the illustrations, at least if they have a taste for gory stuff. The text is drastically shortened and stripped down to basics to fit into a story book. Overall though, as with most of Dahl's books (I imagine) this probably appeals to the 8 year olds and older, that is if they still care for picture books at that point ...

I probably would not have picked it up if it had not been sitting on the picture book shelf at the library next to [b:Dear Daisy, Get Well Soon|2707208|Dear Daisy, Get Well Soon|Maggie Smith|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1267041324s/2707208.jpg|445582] and [b:My School's a Zoo!|795437|My School's a Zoo!|Stu Smith|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1178429459s/795437.jpg|781415], but the thing is it's probably geared at a different audience. This said, I'm looking forward to reading more of Roald Dahl as my child grows into it. ( )

This book is a good demonstration of a child using their imagination. I would possibly use this book in the beginning steps of introducing what a fiction book is. Of course students know that exploring a giant peach is impossible, but I think this book would allow students to get their minds turning on ideas that they could write for their own stories.