Blog 26: Analysis of James and the Giant Peach

After reading Mark West's article on Dahl's writing, I see that I am not alone in not appreciating the book. I do understand that children would find many of the situations in the book humorous, and they would not take them as literal advice on life. However, I am still hesitant to teach children to take justice into their own hands. The fact that James is being abused by his aunts is clearly understood. So James wanting them gone is natural. The arguement in class was that James did no wrong because he did not kill the aunts, the peach did. But when we argue the case in a hit-and-run car accident, we do not blame the car, we blame the person inside. Also, throughout the book James seems to turn himself into the victim when he is not. He and his friends taunt the cloud men, but then as why they are being mean. The whole book just confuses me. I can see that children might like it, but I don't think I will offer up any Dahl book to my kids unless it is required by their school.