Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Not what I was expecting.

Charlie Bucket (is that prounounced Boo-kay?) wins a ticket for the tour of a chocolate factory, and is taken on the tour by the factory owner, Mr Willy Wonka, along with four other kids and their parents, or in Charlie's case, his grandfather.

I read it mainly because it seems to be an essential part of pop culture. Just about every month a question about it pops up on a TV quiz show. But none of the characters were anything like what I had been led to expect.

Read it when I was a kid and I remember I liked it.

I'm reading through Roald Dahl's catalogue with my son during storytime and this one really stood out. There is one thing I loved in this story, which is completely absent in the film. The relationship between Grandpa Joe and Charlie is tender and intimate and inflected with the sort of wisdom passed down from grandparents to children that is hard to articulate. It's a mix of world weariness and profound optimism the two generations overlap can with and Dahl captures it brilliantly.

My son liked the Oompa Loompa songs but wished Dahl would have gone into more detail about squeezing the blueberry juice from Violet Beauregard.

Merveilleux conte pour gourmands, ce que j’ai trouvé beau là-dedans, c’est la faculté de Wonka, Charlie et du grand-père à s’émerveiller, aux 3 âges de la vie ^^
ce que les autres enfants ne semblaient pas capables.
L’adaptation de Tim Burton est tout simplement magique !