In the beginning, there was Roald Dahl....
I think that every child must have a "Roald Dahl" phase in their life. I can still remember reading the collection: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and The Giant Peach, The Twits. I wasn't a very motivated learner in elementary school, but there was something about that married couple being so mean to each other that kept me reading late into the night. There were no VCRs or DVD players then. My best friend Rhonda and I would go to the little library in our small southern Illinois town and watch the 1971 movie (Re-named Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory due to Vietnam) anytime they played it.
For his fifth birthday, I bought a copy of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory for my son. A girlfriend also suggested we listen to the audio version, as the wonderful Monty Python actor Eric Idle is the reader. All three of my kids, even the two year old, can't get enough of it. We read it, we listened to it, and we re-read our favorite chapters over and over again. We watched both versions of the movie on our drives up and down the east coast.
This is probably Dahl's most popular and least "Frightening" book. Sometimes when you describe a plot to someone, it sounds worse than it actually is. Veruca for example is attacked by a hundred squirrels who then drag her down a garbage shoot. Sounds like an atrocious headline. Usually in a Dahl novel, the adults are always the bad guys and the kids get them back in the end. When you first read Charlie, you think the kids are the bad guys and little Charlie is the hero and there are no villainous adults this time. Then you read again and you realize how nasty all the adults are. The four little kids were created by their parents. I am guilty of it myself at times. It is my job to unplug the televisions, put away the computers, and tell them, "No." when they need to hear "No." If you are looking for a good parenting handbook, start with this.
In my daily haze of coming and going and trying to work from home, I do look for teachable moments. If one of them is screaming too loud, I say, "What would happen to a child that is too loud in the chocolate factory?" "What would happen to a child that hits or scratches instead of using words in the chocolate factory?" This is two-fold. First they stop doing whatever it is they are doing, and second, a lot of creativity goes into whatever they think would happen in the factory. For the loud child, we decided Mr. Wonka was working on a candy that would change your voice and keep you from being loud. Kenneth added that you probably had to sing soft lullabies over and over again to little babies.
My son is more imaginative, but my daughter, for obvious reasons, is more practical and grounded. She loves the Violet/blueberry chapter and we read it over and over, but then I can see the anxiety in her face. "But how Mommy? Why Mommy?" I know she is terrified that at any minute she will eat the wrong thing and become a blueberry. I sat her down and promised her it would never happen to her. Violet was a silly girl in a silly story. Sometimes kids have allergic reactions but nothing like that. Frances, you will never become a blueberry. Isn't it nice when there is something you can tell a child won't happen? There are very few things you can promise them, but that is one of them!
The missing chapter and one of the cut characters was published recently. I really wish "Miranda" had made it into the final version. Her naughty trait was being a "Teacher's Pet" type. Her parents have told her she is smart. They allow her to say and do whatever she wants, as she is so much smarter than everyone else. In that one chapter, she is very rude to adults and a nasty know-it-all. This struck me because I have taught many a child like this over the years. I also have a son that comes up with quick one-liners that I post on Facebook, but I never post what I do to him after he says it. Rest assured that my child will never be told, "You are smarter than everyone," because he isn't. I just post the funny part and many of my other friends do the same!
Because I love my movies, I have to compare the 1971/2005 versions. Gene Wilder is the better Willy to me. Don't get me wrong, Johnny is very talented and I liked his performance. I just feel it more from Gene when I read the book and watch the movies.
Veruca Salt is the biggest icon to come out of all of it. The two actresses played her about the same. The new kids brought new aspects to the characters. Violet's competitive nature was expanded past the gum. Augustus was more greedy than gluttonous. Mike in an era of technology has added gaming to his addiction. But with Veruca, there isn't much more to make someone go farther over the top. And more trivia, of the original five child actors, only Veruca is still acting. Charlie is a vet and Violet is a nurse, as her parents refused to let her play the Reagan role two years later (See? Children can be told NO!). I still want to name our puppy Veruca, no matter how bad that will make her act.
We are on to James and The Giant Peach. Then the BFG, Matilda, and the Witches. I am going to hold off on George's Marvelous Medicine, not because I don't like it, but I need to make sure all three of them clearly understand that we don't mix everything in the house together and feed it to ANYONE. I'll give it another year.
If I royally screw up in my parental duties, I'm sure a golden ticket to a certain factory will show up in my energy bar.
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