MMGM: BFG

Today's Marvelous Middle Grade Monday pick:

BFG, by Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake

BFG

Written by Roald Dahl
Illustrated by Quentin Blake
Jonathan Cape, Penguin Random House, 1982
Ages 4-12, Lexile 720L
224 pp, 38000 words


Themes:
Fantasy, Friendships, Assumptions


Opening:
Sophie couldn't sleep.
A brilliant moonbeam was slanting through the gap in the curtains. It was shining right on to her pillow.
The other children in the dormitory had been asleep for hours.
Sophie closed her eyes and lay quite still. She tried very hard to doze off.
It was no good. The moon beam was like a silver blade slicing through the room on to her face.
The house was absolutely silent. No voices came up from downstairs. There were no footsteps on the floor above either.
The window behind the curtain was wide open, but nobody was walking on the pavement outside. No cars went by on the street. Not the tiniest sound could be heard anywhere. Sophie had never known such a silence.
Perhaps, Sophie told herself, this was what they called the witching hour.

Thoughts:
It may be sacrilegious, but I am not as big a Roald Dahl fan as perhaps I should be. I fell in love with James and the Giant Peach in sixth grade. Honestly, it was decades before I found out it was an excerpt. By the time I read the novel, I had already imagined my own story around the incident and couldn't reconcile the two. I didn't grow up with Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka so that particular book had no pull on me. To me, Danny and his father were the worst kind of heroes.

But BFG was the book which opened the magical door. Suddenly I could hear the music in Dahl's words and gulp in the delightful silliness page after page. The text is so lyrically perfect. The humor, both subtle and absolute. The characters are the kind you want to cuddle and keep in your pocket.

So if you haven't read this book, find a copy and blow off work for the afternoon.
If you 've read it before, dust off your favorite edition and read it again.
Either way, it's whoopsy whiffling.


Bonus: 
1. Scholastic posted a sweet little interview with the author on writing, and Viva Veltoro did a fabulous interview with Dahl's daughter, Lucy, specifically about the BFG. Stephanie of Mommy Musings gives her take on the group interview.

2.  Lucy's opinion of the movie and mine seem to sync. You can read my book-to-movie comparison on the Summer Drive-In feature from last Friday.

3. For other gentle giants, try Betsy Gould Hearne's South Star series, Ted Hughes's The Iron Man (AKA The Iron Giant), The Twin Giants, by Dick King-Smith, or The Giant Smugglers, by Matt Solomon and Chris Pauls.

South Star,
by Betsy Gould Hearne
Cover by Trina Schart Hyman

The Giant Smugglers,
by Matt Solomon and Chris Pauls
Cover by Matt Griffin

Twin Giants,
by Dick King-Smith
Cover by Mini Grey

The Iron Man,
By Ted Hughes
Cover by Andrew Davidson

4. Below are some links to explore other Dahl-ing reviews by fellow MMGM participants.

BFG
Brooke on Somewhere in the Middle
Mike from Middle Grade Mafioso
Jenni Enzor
Michelle Mason

Matilda
Cait of The Hopeful Heroine
Michael on Middle Grade Mafioso


5. Roald Dahl was a master of wordplay. The OED added six new words to the dictionary last year in his honor. Increase your own vocabulary with the Dahl Dictionary at Wonderful Dahl. Or buy your own Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary from Oxford University Press.

Check out all the recommended titles for Marvelous Middle Grade Monday for July 3, 2017 available on Shannon Messenger's Ramblings of a Wannabe Scribe.

Feel free to leave your MG recommendations in the comments. Thanks!

MMGM: Trina Schart Hyman Covers

Due to technical difficulties, Shannon Messenger will not be posting Marvelous Middle Grade Monday today. In lieu of a middle grade book review, I thought I'd highlight some of the MG I've been reading (or rather re-reading) lately.

It has often been said, "don't judge a book by its cover," but of course we always do. In fact, it is a designer's job to make a cover that sells the book. When I toured Penguin-Putnam a while back, we discussed at length the changes that sometimes happen because a member of the marketing team is unhappy with the cover (someone who often hasn't read the book, by the way.) Please don't misunderstand. I am grateful for those marketing teams. They live to drive sales of our books and their job is on the line if they aren't successful. They play their part in keeping the publisher in business. If publishers go out of business, writers, readers, and illustrators suffer. That said, here are some books whose covers did their job.


A Well-Timed Enchantment, 1982
by Vivian Vande Velde,
Cover by Trina Schart Hyman

My first Vivian Vande Velde book was A Hidden Magic, and it remains a favorite. So when I found A Well-Timed Enchantment at a book warehouse around 1988, it was a must-have. The only thing I remembered about it? I wasn't crazy about the ending. On rereading, I noted the dedication:

To Elizabeth (even if you don't like the ending)

That didn't bode well. The story follows Deanna as she vacations with her mother in the French countryside. It isn't long before Deanna and a neighborhood cat end up enchanted by fairies back in medieval France on a desperate quest.  The humor borders on the ridiculous. Horn Book calls it "slapstick." But what bothered me this second time through (and thirty years later) was the helpless heroine. Deanna takes charge of her situation, but she spends a lot of time getting interrupted, shoved around, and thwarted...not very heroic.

It's okay for the main character to lose control of the situation, especially in a comedy where the frustrating results can be hilarious. Unfortunately, as a reader I mostly just felt annoyed that Deanna didn't walk away from these buffoons and get on with her quest. In Lemony Snicket's The Series of Unfortunate Events, the Baudelaires are surrounded by idiots, but they persevere in stoic resignation. In Lloyd Alexander's The Cat Who Wished to Be A Man, Lionel is so naïve, and nearly everyone else so ridiculous, that he blunders through his adventure accidentally setting things right. The whole thing is comic genius. But in Well-Timed Enchantment, I just felt frustrated instead. It's still worth reading, but I'm not sure if I'll be taking Robertson Davies's advice on this one.

Cover photo of my Ex libris copy of
Seven Spells to Farewell, 1982
by Betty Baker
Cover illustration by Trina Schart Hyman

Seven Spells to Farewell, by Betty Baker was one of the first books I bought on eBay in the early 90s, I think. How delightful when I realized I could search for those titles that were impossible to find, and actually get my hands on them! The story follows scullery maid Dru who dreams of attending the sorcerer's academy in faraway Farewell. She joins a travelling caravan which includes a talking raven and a mathematical pig. I remembered loving this book and on rereading last month, fell in love all over again. The novel does have some problems. The plot tends to run too smoothly, for one. That is not to say the characters' quest is without incident, but each time the troupe comes up against an obstacle, they take the steps necessary to solve it...and generally do. The main character in this book is more modern: not a helpless damsel battered by uncontrollable circumstances, but a doer determined to shape her fate. The dialogue was a bit bland, but the world-building was pleasant and the characters endearing. An enjoyable bit of magical realism, if you can find it.

Wishes, Kisses, and Pigs,
by Betsy Gould Hearne
Cover by Trina Schart Hyman

You can see my MMGM review of  Betsy Gould Hearne's Wishes, Kisses, and Pigs on the post from February 6, 2017. If anything, I liked this one better the second time around. I originally picked up a copy through my son's Scholastic Book flyer in 2001. He was too young for it then, but I relived the joy of opening a book club brochure and discovering treasure. I read it in one big gul, as I recall, and felt some disappointment. I can't imagine why. I found this little hundred-or-so pages delightfully quirky. A bit like Brave, now that I think about it.






See the pattern emerging here?

Trina Schart Hyman

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you know that I am addicted to the art of Trina Schart Hyman. I own dozens of her books and am not above buying a book I've never heard of because Trina illustrated the cover. When she passed away in 2004, I took the loss personally. Her art has that effect on people. Though there will never be more of her art, she left us a rich legacy that I've spent almost forty years plumbing. Each of these titles comes from my collection.

I hope you have fun discovering her work, letting these and other book covers entice you to places unknown.