I've seen the 70s film a number of times growing up but I haven't read this before. Fortunately, it doesn't suffer for possibly being too old to read it for a first time. The film was quite faithful to the book, with no major omissions. A major addition compared to the book, which is quite interesting, is Charlie and his grandfather sneaking off to indulge in flying and then having to apologize to Willy for his behaviour later on. Reading past this section in the book, abruptly Charlie wins. Did he just win because the other children acted naughty before he had a chance to? In that way, the film feels like a deeper development of Charlie as a person. But the book was a joy to read, lots of humorous songs and strange details and characters.