Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

It's a wonderful story for kids and for adults to learn the world of kids, their dreams, needs etc

It was alright but I expected to love it a lot more. I thought the characters were quite flat and everything in the factory was just scene after scene with no development.

The movie was better

I have fond memories of reading this book as a kid, and I recently reread it with my kids. My kindergartener was captivated by the characters and the descriptions of Willy Wonka's fantastical inventions.

4.5 stars Love this book :D Cute kid, crazy dude and lots of chocolate, what's not to like?

I probably read this when I was a kid, now, reading it to my kids after having read lots and lots of terrible kids books (Magic Treehouse, I'm looking at you) I appreciate it even more. The writing flows amazingly well when reading it out loud. The chapters are the perfect length and the story... well the story has been spoken for in many, many other reviews. It's awesome.

PS Mom, thanks for sending the Magic Treehouse books. I don't like them but the kids LOVE them. :)

Very nice book for children. I saw the movie first, but I wanted to know if there are some differences in the book. I liked how it's described in the book, three stars are very good in this case. If I would rate the czech audiobook narrated by Barbora Hrzánová, it would definitely get 5 stars, cause she is awesome! How she made the differences between all the children and adult characters, simply amazing!

And thus I read the last Dahl on our 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up list. It may be the best. What a great story! Dahl's characters are vibrant, from Charlie and his little impoverished family to the zany Willy Wonka to the shockingly selfish children that are invited to visit the factory. Dahl sets his story in the most amazing spot of all, a wacky candy factory. The good guys get rewarded and the bad guys learn to be better people, but all in a completely kooky and delightful way.

I snapped up this book firstly because of Ivan Brunetti's lovely illustrations on the book cover. But my secondhand copy of this 2011 edition is worth having just for the introduction by Lev Grossman, Time magazine book critic and author. In it, he compares Willy Wonka's chocolate factory to “Dante's Inferno, and to the Mines of Moria dug by the dwarves in The Lord of the Rings.” Unlike those places,

“Wonka's underworld isn't a hellish underworld. It's an inverted paradise. The dwarves, Tolkien wrote, “dug too greedily and too deep,” and they were punished for it: they disturbed the sleep of the terrible Balrog. But in Dahl's imagination the rules are reversed. He gives us the impression that Wonka can dig as greedily and deep as he likes, and things will just keep getting better.”

it is only when he gives in to buying a second candy bar, with money he doesn't really have, that Dahl rewards him with the Golden Ticket.

First time! This book was so good! I truly missed out by not reading this as a kid. The inner workings of the chocolate factory are just so perfect for inspiring a child's imagination. Charlie loved this book too. I think he related to the obsession with candy, and the drama involved with the kids getting into trouble was a perfect level of intensity (strangely violent, but not cruelly so) for a 5 year old. The routine of each child getting picked off one by one was also predictable/satisfying for Charlie. This has been the best chapter book read-aloud experience yet. Most nights, it was me proposing to read “just one more” extra chapter, and not him!

I like the Tim Burton's movie version waaaayyy better. ‘Nuff said.

Queer but quirky.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was perfect for me when I was little. But when I read it again a few years later, from an eerie blend of wistfulness and caffeine...I became aware of a few things that the child me hadn't really deigned to perceive.

1. Food fetish Alert. (It's becoming a cliche for this genre. Like eyes in chick lit.)

2. What's with the sexism? Has anyone else noticed how Dahl always make the fathers have a certain dry, witty sense of humor that is clearly lacking from the hysterical, daft and deranged mothers?

3. The Oompa Loompa songs are just massive nursery rhymes.

4. Is it just me or is Willy Wonka one sexy sob?

5. If I was one of the lucky five, I'd definitely be one of the bad kids. I'm slightly spoiled, but that doesn't mean I want to be thrown down the rubbish chute!

6. I chew a lot of gum. But a lifetime of unlimited chocolate supply does not make up for an eternity spent as a primary color.

7. Also, I watch more TV than Mike. That doesn't mean I'm not reading books.

8. I'm greedy too. But so would every other kid in the world be when faced with a giant chocolate river!

9. I think Wonka's magical chocolate factory would be more like a carnival of horror for me! I'll fall into a hot chocolate river, turn into a giant blubbery, and shrink to thrice my size. No, thank you.

10) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory could have been an unforgettable Goosebumps!