Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator door Roald Dahl

1 Publication data a The author of the book I read is the famous British writer Roald Dahl. He has written many famous books like The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. He has also written several adult books. b Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Penguin Group, London, ca. 2000-16, 189 pages (first published by George Allen and Uwin, 1973). c The genre of this book is a novel.

2 First personal reaction a I chose this book because I like the writer. I have already read some of his books in Dutch and I liked them. When I heard we had to read an English book I went to the lending library. I looked for an English children\'s book and I found this one, so I decided to read it. b I really liked the book, because it\'s very funny. I already knew that Roald Dahl has a great fantasy, but this is another book to demonstrate that. The only thing I didn\'t like is the book has been written for younger children than I. Sometimes I didn\'t laugh about the jokes the writer had made, because they were only funny to younger children. There were also adult jokes, though. I think they are meant for parents and teachers who read the book to the children. I enjoyed these jokes.

3 Deepening of the book a The story is about Charlie, a young boy who has won the chocolate factory of Mr Willy Wonka, the factory owner. His parents, Mr and Mrs Bucket, and his grandparents Grandpa Joe, Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina (the last three of them are always being in their bed) are also important to the story. They try to stop the silly things Mr Wonka does, but they can\'t.

The story consists of two parts. In the first part, the whole family (Charlie, his parents and grandparents) and Mr Wonka are in the great glass elevator from the factory. The problem is, the elevator goes to high, so they go out of the building, even into space. There, in space, is also a space hotel, that will be opened a few hours later. Before it\'s opened, the elevator-travellers go into the hotel. That not a good idea, because there are also some aliens, wanting to eat them, so they go back into their elevator. Then the staff of the hotel wants to go into it, but they also see the aliens. The elevator-travellers help them fleeing. Then the spacecrafts both go back to earth.

In the second part, Mr Willy Wonka has invented a pill that makes you 20 years younger. The grandparents, except of Grandpa Joe, all eat four of them. Grandpa George and Grandma Josephine become little babies, but Grandma Georgina disappears. She has taken too many pills, because she was just 78 years old! Charlie and mister Wonka have to go to Minus-land to get her back. They do by using a spray that makes you older, but she comes back as a 358 year-old lady, so they have to make her younger again. They make her exactly the age she was before al the pills and spays. Then they give the two babies some spray so they become older too. At the very end of the story, they are invited to the White House for a couple of days, because they have saved the space-hotel staff.

b 1I can\'t say a thing about the style of writing, because I don\'t understand what this means. 2 The story takes place at two places. The first one is in the elevator out of space. The second one is the chocolate factory. You might sat there\'s also a third one, in the space hotel. The reader doesn\'t know the time. The only thing I know is, there were spacecrafts and helicopters in the time the story takes places. It can be either the future or the past or even the present. The reader doesn\'t know the time the story takes either, the only thing you know is, that it can\'t be too long, because the persons in the book do never eat or sleep. 3 The main person is a child, like the readers of the book. I think the writer has chosen a child because the readers can easily identify with him. The other person is the funny Mr Wonka. The children will like him, because thinks as a child and does the same things as they do. Grandpa Joe is a loving grandfather like the most grandfathers are. There are also grumpy grandparents like Grandpa George and the others in the bed. The last ones are Mr and Mrs Bucket, Charlie\'s parents. I think the children recognise thing ass well, because most of them have parents themselves. 4 The writer has chosen for silly situations to make the readers laugh. These things won\'t happen in real life. 5 The story is told by an all knowing narrator. That\'s means you feel like an invisible person who takes part in the story without saying a thing, but just looking. c 1I didn\'t find the real theme of the book. I think it\'s just written to amuse people. 2 & 3 Because I didn\'t find a theme, I can\'t find typical parts of the book for that theme either. That\'s the same for the link between the theme and the title.

d 1 This book has been published the first time in 1973. 2 Roald Dahl was born in 1916 in Wales from Norwegian parents. He was educated in England before starting work for the Shell Oil Company in Africa. He began writing sustained as an RAF fighter pilot during the Second World War. Roald Dahl wrote funny books for children and serious books for adults. Roald Dahl died in 1990 at the age of seventy-four. 3 It\'s difficult to say something about the time in which the book was written. That\'s because we haven\'t talked about that at Dutch class so far. I tried to find out about it, though. I read in Holland writers were expect to write about reality. In England it was more a tradition to write fantastic storeys, like this one. 4 This work is very typical for Roald Dahl, because all his children\'s books are about a boy or girl as the main character. He or she has a sort of power over adults. Another similarity is that the story won\'t happen in real life, only in your fantasy. That\'s the same as in other children\'s books written by Roald Dahl. I\'m not sure, but I think that\'s different in his adult books. 5 I don\'t know if this work is typical for the time it has been published in, because I didn\'t know much about that. You can read more about that at the third point, above this one.

4 Review 1 The whole story has a positive influence on me, so there aren\'t special parts of the story being positive to me. The positive influence was different in different parts of the book. Par example, the part with the aliens was exiting, nearly frightening. The part in which Charlie\'s grandparents become little babies is funny. There are several examples like these two. 2 The part that I liked the most is the one in which the elevator is rising into space, because Charlie\'s parents and grandparents are scared and want to go down, while Charlie and Mr Wonka are just laughing and enjoying the travelling. 3 The only negative side of the book are the songs the Oompa-Loompa\'s sing. Their songs are boring, because the Oompa-Loompa\'s sing the same thing several times with other words. 4 You can compare this book with other books from Roald Dahl, because they have the same strange aspects, the same things that won\'t happen in real life. That\'s because one man has one fantasy, so his books will resemble to each other. Another book Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator resembles to, is Abeltje, written by Annie M.G. Schmidt. Abeltje is about a liftboy who pressed the wrong button in the elevator. The elevator flies through the roof of the building, like Charlie\'s elevator did. While I was reading, I often thought I was reading Abeltje in English! The difference is, this elevator flies to the United States of America, instead of the space. 5 I have already said that I don\'t know what the theme of the book is. Anyhow, I think I can say something about it. That\'s the following. The problem in the book isn\'t something what will happen in real life, but I did believe it in the book, because the solution was just a smart thing you could think of myself. I mean I believed the story because everything in the fantasy world of it had a logical connection. 6 The linguistic usage in the book was easy, but sometimes I had to use a dictionary, though, because the writer likes to use strange words, like grimalkin, what means old cat. These words were usually used in the recipes Mr Wonka talks about. 7 My final judgement for this book that it is a funny book that you can read to relax. I liked to read it when I had lots to do for school but I was too tired to do all that. Those moments I decided to read Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, because it was something for school but it wasn\'t hard to read. I also liked the book because the writer has chosen child for the main person. That\'s something you can show children are important to the world, because they have to run it in future. 8 I think this is a nice book to read. Not only for English children, but also for Dutch children who have to read something in English. I think you can better read it in the third class than in the fourth class. To be honest, sometimes it was a bit too easy for me. That\'s why I will read something more difficult next time. 9 I looked on the Internet to find some reviews of Charlie and the great glass elevator, but I didn\'t find them. Because this is a pretty \"old\" book I think they aren\'t in the newspaper either. I haven\'t looked in there. Because this would be the last assignment, you have arrived at the end of my book review. I only have the reflection part for you.

Reflection I liked reading this book, but it was a bit too easy for me. That\'s why I\'m going to read something more difficult next time. The most difficult thing of the book review was the deepening part. It was difficult tome, because I has never done something like that before, I even didn\'t for Dutch, so I had to find out how to do it first. That took quite a lot of time. When I knew how to do it, I could easily do the assignment.