James and the Giant Peach

Reviewed by: Dan

I read the book James and the Giant Peach. James is one of the main characters in the book. James once had a really fun and loving life, but one day his parents wanted to go shopping in England. So they went there in the middle of the day. It was a crowded city and they got eaten up by an angry rhinoceros on the loose from the zoo. This was really bad for James because that meant he had to live with his “evil” aunts, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. One day just after Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker had finished yelling at James, James ran away from them to the other side of the garden and started crying. A minute later an old man appeared and showed James something very special inside of a bag, they were tiny green things rustling about very quietly. The green things were 1,000 little slimy crocodile tongues boiled up in the skull of a dead witch for 20 days and nights with the eyeballs of a lizard, the fingers of a young monkey, the gizzard of a pig, the beak of a green parrot, the juice of a porcupine, 3 spoonfuls of sugar, he stewed it for another week, and then he let the moon do the rest. When all of these ingredients are combined with ten hairs from your own head and mixed with a jug of water, the potion becomes magical. You then drink the potion and wonderful thing begin to happen to you.

With the idea of having a new wonderful life, James immediately ran up the hill to drink the potion. Unfortunately, the bag spilt during his run up the hill. It was scattered all over the ground near an old peach tree. Immediately a peach began to grow and grow and grow until it was as big as a house. The aunts were very pleased with this because they came up with the idea of making people pay to see the massive peach. They thought they could become rich with this idea. One night the aunts told James to clean up after all sight seers. When he was out side, he saw a hole in the peach and decided to climb in. Upon reaching the core, he saw a door, opened it and climbed in. He saw terrifying giant insects inside. He was told not to be afraid. They were waiting all day for him to come so they could cut the stem and roll away from the aunts.
The peach rolled down the hill, over the aunts and over the cliff into the water. The peach actually floated to there surprise. When they all became hungry, James decided they should eat the peach. They didn’t want to stay in the water with hungry sharks circling them, so the silk worm and spider made string to lasso thousands of birds to help lift the peach out of the water. So they were pulled up and up and up until they reached “Cloud men”, who were practicing for winter by dropping hail stone off the clouds. The giant grass hopper was insulting them, so Cloud men began to throw hail stones at the peach and chased them. They were getting close so James and the insects cut a few birds off to allow them to drop slowly.

Eventually, the birds had carried them into New York City where they were thought to be a big bomb. They landed on top of one of the tallest skyscrapers in the city. Police, fire and other citizens thought that they were aliens until James appeared over the side of the peach. He told the people that the giant insects were harmless. They were all helped down from the peach and became famous. The centipede became V.P. of a shoe company, the earthworm became employed by a company that made women’s face cream, the spider and silk worm had learned how to make nylon thread and made rope for tightrope walkers, the glow worm became the light inside the Statue of Liberty, the grasshopper became a member of the New York symphony orchestra and the lady bug married the head of the fire department. James Henry Trotter lived in the remaining peach stone. He was often visited by many friends and curious people. James, who used to be the saddest person on the planet, is now the happiest person in the world.