In Preparation

Wednesday is my Read 'n' Rant 4th &5th grade book group, and this time around, we read James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. (The book is different than the movie, BTW.) Well, this was my first reading of the book and I'll admit that I probably should have read it before I chose to lead a book discussion group on it. (I guess I'm just lazy?) Anyway, there is a squashing of the two aunts scene, two "swear words," and a scene where the giant hovering peach seems to appear as a threat to NYC. Great. Well, at least I know that we'll have a good discussion.

In other news about Dahl, I read this interview with him that was included in the Random House publication that I read. One question that I thought interesting:

How do you include horrific events without scaring your readers? (It seemed pertinent at the time...)

You never describe any horrors happening, you just say that they do happen. Children who got crunched up in Willy Wonka's chocolate machine were carried away and that was the end of it. When the parents screamed, "Where has he gone?" and Wonka said, "Well, he's gone to be made into fudge," That's where you laugh, because you don't see it happening, you don't hear the child screaming or anything like that ever, ever, ever.

I dunno, though. I still think Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge being flattened by a giant peach and having there be a "bump" and a "crunching" sound - that's pretty messed up. Maybe I just have too vivid an imagination.