Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

⭐⭐⭐ - 3 stars

“Augustus Gloop eats himself sick.

Veruca Salt is a spoiled rotten brat.

Violet Beauregarde chews gum day and night.

Mike Teavee is a television fiend.

Charlie Buckett, Our Hero, is brave and true and very, very hungry.

What do these five have in common? Why, they're the luckiest children in the entire world; they've each won the chance to enter Willy Wonka's famous, mysterious chocolate factory.

What happens when the big doors swing open to reveal Mr. Wonka's secrets? What happens when they come upon the tiny factory workers who sing in rhyme? What happens when, one by one, the children disobey Mr. Wonka's orders? In Roald Dahl's most popular story for children, the nasty are punished and the good are deliciously, sumptuously rewarded.”

One of my many book goals has been to read all the Roald Dahl books. I have listened to the audiobook of Charlie and the Factory, however that does not count as reading it so I decided to pick up this well known Dahl book. (It was a quick read so that helped!) Reading this gave me The Candymakers vibes, so I am assuming that is where Wendy Mass drew some of her inspiration for her book.
I enjoyed this book well enough. It is not my favorite Roald Dahl book as I prefer Matilda. Nonetheless, it’s like a ‘classic-ish’ book so I am glad I took the hour or so out of my day to read it.

Characters:

Willy Wonka:
He was an eccentric, elderly, ecstatic candy maker. I almost feel as if he was on something because of how strange he acted.

Charlie Bucket:
A young, poor, and well behaved child. (Especially compared to the other four children. Goodness gracious.)

Veruca Salt:
An imprudent young girl who acted anything but a little lady.

Mike Teavee:
A huge TV fanatic. It’s as if he couldn’t live correctly without his precious device. *eye roll* However, this did give the excuse to come up with a great song for the Oompa-Loompas to sing.

Augustus Gloop:
This nine year old child eats to the extreme. All he seems to want to do is eat, eat, and eat. He ate so much Dahl described him to be “...so enormously fat he looked as though he had been blown up with a powerful pump.”

Quotes:

“‘My goodness, she is a bad nut after all,’ said Mr. Wonka. ‘Her head must be extremely hollow.’”

“I am very proud of my square candies that look round.”
I love how Roald Dahl uses words in such an interesting way! Almost like a homophone… I can’t place the word to explain it. Same with the quote below.

“Hot ice cream warms you up no end in freezing weather. I also make hot ice cubes for putting in hot drinks. Hot ice cubes make hot drinks hotter.”

“An Oompa-Loompa is sucking it. He’s been sucking it for very nearly a year now without stopping, and it's still as good as ever!”

I have one more quote, however it is basically the whole song about Mike Teavee so I’m not going to copy it all out. If you are interested you should read it. The few lines about books and reading are great, lol.

Note:
There is the use of the A word, previously in history used for the name of a donkey. However, this book being not that old, it is not used in that way. Wonka calls some dumb parents the word.