The BFG by Roald Dahl

Sophie is an orphan who lives in an orphanage in England.  One night during the “witching hour” Sophie peeks out her window and sees a giant.  The giant comes to her window and snatches her from her bed.  He runs back to Giant Country with Sophie.  Once in his cave, Sophie pleads with him not to eat her.  He says he won’t because he doesn’t eat humans, like the other giants, his name is The Big Friendly Giant (or The BFG for short).

Sophie’s adventure has started with the BFG.  He introduces her to the yucky food he eats – snozzcumbers, and the fizzy drink he has called frobscottle, which makes you fart because the bubbles go down, instead of up!  The BFG’s language is imaginative and a little backward because giants don’t go to school.

The primary thing the BFG does with his time is catch dreams.  Dream Country is where the BFG uses his enormous ears to hear dreams when they originate.  He has found purpose in catching dreams for little children, good dreams are called golden phizzwizards and nightmares are called trogglehumpers.  The BFG says he’ll never release the nightmares, they’ll be trapped forever so they don’t scare children.  At night, the BFG goes around different countries, using his dream trumpet to blow the good dreams into children’s bedrooms.

During all of this discovery with the BFG, Sophie learns there are 9 other blood-thirsty giants living in Giant Country.  These giants are even bigger than the BFG and they have horrible names such as The Fleshlumpeater and The Bonecruncher.  Sophie is terrified by these other giants and the BFG warns her that if they find her, they’ll eat her up as fast as they can.  She has a couple of close encounters as the giants bully the BFG in his cave and when he is on his way to Dream Country with Sophie.  The BFG gets back at The Fleshlumpeater by sending a nightmare to him, which starts a rough and tumble brawl amongst all 9 giants.

Later that night all 9 giants go running off to England to a boys’ school and a girls school to have dinner.  This upsets Sophie so much that she hatches a plan with the BFG that involves the Queen of England to stop the 9 blood-thirsty giants.  The BFG mixes up a dream just for the Queen all about the 9 awful giants, Sophie, and The BFG.  After making it to England, blowing the dream into the Queen’s bedroom, Sophie waits for her to wake up.  The Queen meets Sophie and the BFG then verifies their story.  Quickly she dispatches the army and airforce to follow the BFG to giant country and capture all 9 of the terrible giants during their nap time.  Once captured, the 9 giants are transported back to England by helicopter and put into an enormous hole, 500 feet deep.  They are sentenced to life in the pit and a diet of nasty snozzcumbers for the rest of their lives.

Reading level: 3rd – 5th grade
Read out loud level:  Kindergarten and up

The BFG is all about the world of giants.  Giants eat humans, so throughout the book, there are a lot of references to giants eating humans, snatching humans out of their beds at night to eat them, cannibalism, and taking enjoyment in eating human flesh.  The book starts out with Sophie getting snatched out of her bed in the middle of the night by the BFG. All of this content might frighten a child.

There is an underlying magical theme in this story because it is a fantasy about giants.  The novel discusses catching dreams, blowing dreams into children’s rooms in the middle of the night, mixing dreams to make new ones, going to different lands, and The Witching Hour.

I would recommend this book as a read-aloud, this way you can talk to your children and reassure them if these topics are scary to them.  The BFGs dialogue is fun and whimsical, but some of the vocabulary or made-up words could be difficult for younger readers. My own children (ages 5, 6, and 7) loved this book as a read-aloud.

Language:

Name calling – the large giants often call the BFG “runt” or “the runty one”.  Other names the bad giants call the BFG are:  grobsquiffler, troggy little twit, shrivelly little shrimp, mucky little midget, squaggy little squib, grobby little grub, scrumscrewer, piffling little swishfiggler, squimpy little bottlewart, prunty little pogswizzler, swinebuggler, and pigswiller.

Cursing is referred to, actual words are not mentioned, just that the bad giants were fighting and “cursing”.

Questionable Behaviors:

Bullying – throughout the book, the interactions between the bad giants and the BFG would be considered bullying. The bad giants seem to pick on the BFG for no reason, even play a game where they toss him back and forth to each other.

Lying – to protect Sophie, the BFG lies several times to the bad giants, telling them he does not have a human with him.  The BFG lies to one of the bad giants in order to help capture him.  They don’t address how this is lying or name it specifically. It would be good to talk to your children about lying while reading this book.

Retaliation – after the bag giants rough up the BFG he comes back from Dream Country with a nightmare and decides to give it to one of the bad giants, while they are sleeping.  The bad giant has a nightmare then proceeds to cause a fight amongst the other bad giants that includes punching, kicking, crunching noses, and knocking teeth out.

Punishment – Sophie is an orphan and was punished by the woman who ran the orphanage.  Specifically, she was locked in the cellar with rats, and food and drink were withheld.  Putting this into a biblical perspective, you could ask something like “How are orphans addressed in the Bible? How should we care for them?”

Stealing – the BFG “stole” Sophie from her bed, he also “borrowed” a book from a boy for many years, his concept of time is not the same as ours.

Mention of drinking beer – three men “drank too much beer” and fell into the pit with the bad giants, then were eaten.

Other Things to Know:

The BFG has an astounding ability to hear because of his huge ears.  He discusses how flowers scream when we pick them and how trees moan when we chop them down.  For younger readers this should be discussed further.

There’s a special soda drink in Giant Country, where the bubbles go down instead of up, so it causes the BFG to fart instead of burp.

The BFG and Sophie share a dialogue where he tells her the humans are the only species that kill each other.  He seems to find justification that it is not a big deal when the bad giants eat humans because humans are already killing each other by shooting guns or dropping bombs.

This review is written by Jessica Stout. To learn more about Jessica, click HERE.

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclaimer for more info.