Wonka's Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight

Usually when I need to give my brain a break I go to my childhood favorites.  This time I picked up Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.  This book has always appealed to me for many reasons, not the least of which is the idea of endless chocolate.  Ready to go on a wild ride?  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Charlie Bucket is a very poor boy who lives with his parents and his four bed bound Grandparents in a tiny drafty house.  They subsist mostly on cabbage soup with the occasional bite of bread.  They are a loving family though and do there best to help each other survive.  Grandpa Joe tells little Charlie the story of Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory that had to shut its doors to the public due to all the spying going on.  Grandpa Joe tells Charlie that one day the factory started up again, with mysterious workers helping Wonka produce sweet wonders...but the gates remained closed and locked.  One night an announcement goes out that in five random Wonka chocolate bars are golden tickets that will allow a person into the Wonka factory.  Obviously the world is vary excited and a run on chocolate bars ensues.  The first person to find a golden ticket is the gluttonous Agustus Gloop, a little boy who won't stop eating.  Next is the very spoiled Veruca Salt who obtained her ticket when her father paid his peanut shellers to open candy bars instead.  Charlies birthday happens and he gets his traditional chocolate bar which sadly contains no golden ticket.  The third ticket goes to the annoying, gum chewing Violet Beauregarde and the fourth to the television and violence obsessed Mike Teavee.  Grandpa Joe figures out a way to get Charlie another chocolate bar, which again holds no ticket.  Mr. Bucket loses his job at the toothpaste factory and the family begins to starve.  Charlie finds a dollar bill on the way home and uses it to buy chocolate (smart boy) he wolfs it down and buys another and lo and behold GOLDEN TICKET!  The long anticipated day arrives and the five winners along with their parents (except Charlie who just brings Grandpa Joe) arrive at the factory to meet the mysterious Willy Wonka.  They are greeted by a funny little man in a green had and purple velvet coat who promptly brings them inside the wondrous factory.   The first stop is my personal favorite, a huge meadow area where EVERYTHING is edible and made of candy! How cool is that ?!?  The best part is the chocolate river running through it.  Here we lose our first winner when Augustus Gloop falls into the river while drinking the chocolate and is sucked up the pipe.  Here we also meet the Oompa Loompa's, small weird colored guys who sing mean, yet insightful songs about our wayward winners.  The remaining people get into a fantastic boat and go hurtling down the chocolate river past many tantalizing doors stopping in an experimental room where our next child leaves us.  The gum chewing Violet grabs an experimental piece of gum and turns into a giant blueberry.  New up the nut sorting squirrles who decide Veruca is a bad nut when she try's to get her greedy little hands on one, bye bye Veruca.  We are now down to Mike TeaVee and Charlie Bucket.  Mike requests something TV related and Wonka takes them to a room where he is transmitting chocolate by radio waves to televisions.  Mike gets himself miniaturized when he jumps in front of the camera to get on TV.  We are now left with just sweet Charlie Bucket and his grandfather.  Willy Wonka then reveals that the whole point of the competition was to find an heir to his factory.  He offers it to Charlie, telling him the whole family can move in.  The book ends with Wonka telling Charlie to press a special button on the glass elevator that hurls them to Charlies home where they pick up his family to start a better life.

World Building - The book is a semi-fantastical novel mostly set in this awesome chocolate factory.  The world is fairly contained and more hinted at then shown.  There is a huge scope for people to fill in details and use their imagination to make the factory anything they want it to be.  My favorite spot is the meadow and chocolate river as it makes my imagination explode.

Story - The main story was pretty straight forward, a cautionary tale for children.  This is the type of story that tells you if you behave you can inherit a chocolate factory :-)  It also had a good punch of humor and straight up crazy which is always a plus for me.  Keeping in mind that this is an old school MG book I think the story kept a good balance between cheeky and a morality tale.

Character - The main characters were all pretty stock style characters, but this was done on purpose to illustrate a point, so I will give the kids a pass on this one.  I do however love Veruca Salt not for any real reason, I just do.  I also really enjoy Grandpa Joe's spunkyness and his ability to take quiet Charlie on this great adventure.  Of course my absolute favorite character is Willy Wonka. Just his name makes me smile, but what I really love is his sheer eccentricness.  He is the perfect mix of creative, dreamy, responsible, compassionate, logical and bat sh*t crazy.  I love everything about him.

Editing - This was a pretty simple and straight forward book told in a simple and straight forward way.  Not a lot to say about the editing other then it was fine.  Also there a bunch of really weird, scary yet fitting illustrations by Quentin Blake that add the perfect touch to this book.

Parents - The children in this book all had very obvious flaws that caused their downfall, but what I thought was interesting and very cool was that the book was very clear that the reason the children had gotten as bad as they were was the fault of the parents.  We see multiple times where the parents could have brought their precious darlings to heel, but instead indulged and defended them.  It's good to know that the author at least knew where bad kids come from...bad parents.  In contrast Charlie's family was responsible and loving and had trained Charlie so well he didn't even need his parents at factory, instead he go his spunky Grandpa Joe.

Imagination - I like how this book inspires imagination.  There are a couple well explained rooms and candies, but most are just hinted at.  I like this because it gives the reader a chance to imagine what all the different things could be, or look like, or taste like.  The lay out of the book also hints at almost endless possibilities, making this a great book to read with your kids or nephews and nieces or whoever because it leaves a ton of open ended conversations.  Even the "punishments" that the naughty kids get are creative, and in the end not permanent.

Movies - I can't mention this book without talking about the movies.  There is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder as the title character, and the later Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Johnny Depp at Willy Wonka.  Now I adore Johnny Depp and I know that to some degree Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is more faithful to the book, but I mostly find it a tad too creepy for my taste.  The Gene Wilder version on the other hand is one of my favorite movies ever!  While it definitely does not follow the book word for word it most definitely keeps the spirit of the book to the fullest extant.  It will probably come as no surprise to anybody that my favorite scene is the World of Pure Imagination song/scene.  Also I feel that Gene Wilder captures the person of Willy Wonka perfectly.

Overall Impression - I very much enjoy this book, I feel it is entirley age appropriate, not overly complicated or angsty and is perfect for reading with a younger person.  I feel it encourages conversation and imagination and pretty much recommend it to everybody.  I give it 8 out of 10 everlasting gobstoppers and am now going to go watch the movie and eat some chocolate.  Happy Reading Everybody!!!

Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?

The book I am rambling today is one of my random acquisitions.  I picked it up at my favorite used book store because I had remembered seeing it several times at my childhood library and it was only two bucks.  It had apparently fallen out into the trunk of my car where I forgot I had gotten and when I refound it I tossed it in my backpack to bring it inside.  It never made it inside because I started reading it instead and WOW good job me.  The book is The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier.  What was it about this book that got to me?  I'll tell you, but first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

The setting for this book is Trinity School.  A private, Catholic, high school set in a predominantly white middle class neighborhood.   While the book deals with many many characters, I'll stick with the biggest players to keep this synopsis manageable.  The main guy's we follow are Jerry Renault, a freshman who is desperate to get on the football team, Archie, the semi-sadistic "Assigner" of the schools secret society called the Vigils, and Brother Leon, a power hungry man who get's his change as the interim Head Master.  The basic story line center's around the school's annual chocolate sale.  Brother Leon takes a gamble by buying twice as much chocolate as in previous year's for twice the price.  In essence the boy's need to sell twice as much chocolate as in previous years, while
convincing people they worth the higher price.  To try and get ahead of the game Brother Leon recruits Archie to use the Vigils to get behind the sale.  The Vigils are the schools secret society that seems to solely exist to assign various pranks to the younger guys.  The Vigil's are pretty powerful and a kid has yet to defy them.  Archie and Leon have a bit of a power struggle, resulting in Archie assigning Jerry the task of refusing to sell chocolates for ten days.  Since the chocolate sale is technically voluntary, there is not a whole lot Brother Leon can do about it.  Once the ten days are up everybody expects Jerry to finally accept the chocolates and start selling them, but much to everybody's surprise (including Jerry's) he continues to refuse.  At first he is not sure why, only the phrase on the poster in his locker "Do I Dare Disturb the Universe" sparking any resonance, but he eventually decides he is sick of doing something, just because everybody else is, or it has always been done.  As time goes by, other students start to follow Jerry's example, also burned out by always being ruled over by the top dogs.  This puts Archie in the position of his precious Vigils no longer having the control over the school that they are used to.  Brother Leon is also in a perilous position as he over extended the schools finances to buy the chocolate.  Archie takes charge and turns Jerry from a hero to an outcast by selling all the chocolates and giving everybody else in the school credit, making it the cool thing again.  He also has Jerry intimidated and even physically hurt.  To reinstate his dominance, Archie organizes an event for students only where he raffles off the ability call the shots in a fight between Jerry and a thug named Emile.  This results in Jerry being beat to the point of death and taken to hospital with life threatening injuries.  For a minute it looks like Archie will finally get in trouble for this stunt, by Brother Leon intercedes and no consequences are seen.  The book ends with Archie once again assured in his dominance and his friends/cronies questioning how long he can get away with it.

What struck me the most about this book was how brutally realistic it felt.  The author jumped around to several of the boys and Brothers and showed us not only their actions, but their feeling's and their thought processes.  It was not always logical, but it rang true for teenage boys (I say not ever have been one).  I have always been driven crazy by people who allow themselves to be bullied, or go with the status quo because it is easier then creating a scene and I cheered when Jerry decided to be that guy.  I loved how initially Jerry had no intentions of being the boat rocker, but after being forced into

the role, continued on, even after he was humiliated and beat up, he stood his ground.  I liked how the author showed bullying comes in  many forms.  We see the classic physical intimidator in Emile, who is not sure why he get's off on bullying kids, but he knows it makes him happy.   We see the sadistic manipulator in Archie, a guy who see's what he calls the big picture and revels in control and humiliation.  We have the adult authority figure who does not have the students best interest at heart and uses his position to belittle and terrify the students to satisfy something he is obviously lacking.  We also see the vast majority of the student body and teachers just going along with the flow, afraid to make waves, not wanting to be the person who stands out.  I feel this is still a serious issue in society (this book was published in 1974) where nobody wants to be the person who stands up and says "hey this is not ok".  We still in schools where teachers tell kids to toughen up, or to ignore the bully and it will go away.  Social media has added another dimension in which to bully each other. This book did not have the technology we have, but still managed to convey the myriad of ways one group can torture the other.  The ending of this book made me incredibly sad and yet rang completely true.  It does feel sometimes that even when a person gets caught doing something heinous, there is always somebody to protect them, while the guy who tries to do the right thing gets hurt in some way.  Overall I feel like I should like this book way less then I do because it is so bleak, but I found it to be very readable and would put this on a school list to prompt some discussion.  I recommend it to anybody who has an interest in society, bullying, or want to start a discussion.  I give this book 8 out of 10 boxes of chocolates and will gladly put it on my "must send to nephews when they are older shelf".
Why do you think I loved this bleak book so much?  What topic get's under your skin?  Does my loudness put me in the bully category?

Bookachocovodkaholic

Blech, had to drive 3 hours both ways in 102 degree heat, just to spend a measly 15 minutes getting blood drawn (for work, I'm not sick or anything).

No idea what this book is about, but it seemed appropriate for this post :-)

To make it up to myself I stopped at the bookstore, the chocolate store and the liquor store.  If anybody needs my I will be curled up in my reading chair under the AC enjoying my new purchases.
Happy Reading Everybody!