Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
1964
- childrens media tie-in books
- children's middle grade action & adventure books
- children's picture books
- avarice
- behavior
- chocolat
- chocolate
- chocolate factories
- conducta
- conduct of life
The story
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was first published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1964 and in the United Kingdom by George Allen & Unwin 11 months later. In the 2012 survey published by SLJ, a monthly with primarily US audience, Charlie was the second of four books by Dahl among their Top 100 Chapter Books, one more than any other writer. Time magazine in the US included the novel in its list of the 100 Best Young-Adult Books of All Time.
What it’s like
Bright, slightly absurd and sensory, the book lives in its voice: a warm, wry, storytelling narrator who addresses the reader directly and delights in describing things that are impossible to picture without help. Chocolate rooms, rivers of warm melted sweets, and the glossy hum of machinery that seems to run on pure whimsy give it a richly tactile world on the page, though the scenes are quick and clear rather than lingering. The mood is cheerful with a mischievous edge, and the tone stays light even when a child gets into serious trouble. Short chapters and a brisk rhythm make it easy to read aloud or to devour in one go on a rainy afternoon, or as a comfort reread for anyone who loves a fairytale with a moral wink. Its emotional arc follows a poor, good-hearted boy whose modest kindness is rewarded amid a parade of greedy, spoiled rivals. Violence is absent; the mild peril is comic rather than frightening, with no gore, no sexual content, and no real cruelty beyond sharp satire of gluttony and vanity. It suits young readers, families reading together, and adults who want something gentle, funny and unashamedly inventive.
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