 First edition (US) | |
| Author | Roald Dahl |
|---|---|
| Illustrator |
|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's novel, Fantasy |
| Published | 1961
Published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Original language English |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. |
Publication date | 17 July 1961 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 160 |
| OCLC | 50568125 |
| [Fic] 21 | |
| LC Class | PZ8.D137 James 2002 |
James and the Giant Peach is a children's novel written in 1961 by British author Roald Dahl. The first edition, published by Alfred Knopf, featured illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. There have been re-illustrated versions of it over the years, done by Michael Simeon (for the first British edition), Emma Chichester Clark, Lane Smith and Quentin Blake. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1996 (with Smith being a conceptual designer) which was directed by Henry Selick, and a musical in 2010.
The plot centres on a young English orphan boy who enters a gigantic, magical peach, and has a wild and surreal cross-world adventure with seven magically altered garden bugs he meets. Dahl was originally going to write about a giant cherry, but changed it to James and the Giant Peach because a peach is "prettier, bigger and squishier than a cherry."[1][2] Because of the story's occasional macabre and potentially frightening content, it has become a regular target of censors.[3][4]
Dahl dedicated the book to his six-year-old daughter Olivia, who died from complications of measles only a year after the book was published.[5]
American novelist Bret Easton Ellis has cited James and the Giant Peach as his favourite children's book:
It changed my life. My aunt read it to me, my sisters and my three cousins in two sittings over vacation at a beach house when I was about six. The idea that the world was meaner, crueller, more absurd and fantastical than anything that picture books had previously showed me made a real impact. That was the moment I couldn’t go back [as a reader].[6]
- ^ "Roald Dahl Fact Sheet: Puffin play ground". Puffin Books
- ^ Clarie Heald (11 June 2005) "Chocolate doors thrown open to Dahl", BBC News.
- ^ The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–1999. American Library Association.
- ^ "Why is China banning Winnie the Pooh and other foreign picture books?" Newsweek.
- ^ Gander, Kashmira (30 January 2019). "'In 12 Hours She Was Dead': Read Roald Dahl's Heartbreaking Letter to Anti-Vaxxers After His Daughter Died From Measles". Newsweek. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
- ^ Cummins, Anthony (15 January 2023). "Bret Easton Ellis: 'James and the Giant Peach changed my life'". The Guardian.