One of the most amazing authors of children’s books was the British author Roald Dahl. His books are entertaining and have wacky characters and there’s always a lot of humour. My favourite book of his is James and the Giant Peach, which is as brilliant now as when I first came across it at primary school. The story is about an orphan is befriended by giant insects and with whom he embarks on an amazing adventure involving that common garden occurrence−a giant peach!

Although the book is considered a classic, Roald Dahl did not have a straightforward route to success with it. As he was better known as a writer of books for adults, people seemed reluctant to take a chance on his new idea. In fact, to get it published in the UK he had to pay half the publishing costs. Thankfully, he received a similar amount of the sales income and so had the last laugh.

Analysing the book…

Strangely, some people have objected to the stories darker elements and have tried to get it banned. Probably, these people dislike the book because Roald Dahl made the adults in it mean and nasty, which was an unwelcome change to the way many children’s books pictured grown-ups. Funnily enough, many adults continue to be quite happy to live up to the mean and nasty image and set a bad example to younger people so Roald Dahl was probably onto something!

Others have analysed the book from a more scientific angle. In 2013, physics students from Leicester university tackled the problem of how many seagulls it would take to life a giant peach into the air, as this is an important event in the book. As they showed in their though-provoking scientific paper, as great a writer as Roald Dahl was, he was no physicist and grossly underestimated the required number of seagulls.