As I have admitted previously on this blog, I didn’t actually like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a child. And that’s even before I saw the Gene Wilder version of the movie with the horrid orange Oompa Loompas that are the stuff of nightmares. It’s something I always felt a bit embarrassed and guilty about because it was so universally loved that I thought perhaps the fault lay with me for not enjoying it. So I’ve been dreading picking it up again. But I had to. How could I possibly run a month of candy filled book reviews without the ultimate in candy books? Simply not possible. So I buckled down (with all the enthusiasm of someone facing a root canal) and read it.
There are the most delicious mouth-watering descriptions of fantasy candy that you will ever read. It’s marvelously impressive. There are also a great many terribly behaved children who succumb to shall we say, interesting, fates. I can see why this bothered me so much as a child. First off, I never was very fond of children characters who misbehave (see: Ramona). Secondly, I was far more likely to be disturbed than entertained by the fates that befall them while in the factory. For all my dislike of them, I can’t say I was comfortable with the comeuppance, nor Wonka’s cavalier attitude toward it all. Finally (and of course this is due to the existence of a sequel) the book does seem to leave off a smidge unfinished.
Because Dahl is a generally beloved author, his books are often suggested to children who are far to young or simply not yet ready (either in terms of comprehension or content) to truly enjoy them. While some children would fully enjoy this as a read aloud as young as second grade, others will struggle to read this independently in fourth grade. I think you need to know whether or not your audience would be comfortable with the possible creepiness (and come now, we must admit, Dahl tends toward the creepy) and whether or not the difficulty level was acceptable. I would say for independent reading, it would probably be for very advanced third graders, or for fourth graders.
As a final word of caution, you may want to review the story of the Oompa Loompas and decide how you feel about it…see my comments below.
Possible Human Trafficking/Exploitation – Look, you can’t think everything was on the up and up with regards to the Oompa Loompas. Wonka says he “imported” them from Loompa land and makes a big fuss about how awful their lives were there and how much they wanted cacao (which of course is the bean that produces chocolate). Wonka did ask the chief before bringing them to his factory, but he pays them in beans and in fact, shipped them in containers with breathing holes punched out fully admitting that he “smuggled” them in. There’s also mention of how they prefer to wear their jungle clothes – the usual combination of skins, leaves and nudity. (I can’t say that the “orange face” used in the movie does much to improve the situation either – especially since the book describes their skin as rosy white). They also play drums. And of course, Wonka uses them to test his experiments, which don’t always go well. He’s continually giving examples of how the Oompa Loompas came to harm while testing his products.
Sex, Nudity, Dating – Oompa Loompa children go about naked.
Profanity – “Good Heavens,” “heck,” “cripes,” “nincompoop” “heck,” “ass,” “shut up,” “oh my sainted aunt,”
Death, Violence and Gore – A man robs a bank to get money to buy candy bars. A machine rips the filling out of a woman’s mouth. Grandma says a girl needs a spanking. A boy enjoys watching shows with gangsters and machine guns and owns 18 toy guns himself, which he fires when excited. A child is sucked up a pipe. There is genuine concern that he will, possibly being sliced up by knives, ground to bits, boiled and turned to food. Someone suggests that an annoying child needs a kick in the pants. Another child swells up enormously. It is possible that the cure for this will kill the child. A story is told of a woman who will not stop chewing and chews her boyfriend’s nose and eventually bites off her own tongue. Someone is determined to be “a bad nut” and thrown down the garbage chute which ends in the incinerator, but of course, maybe it won’t be lit and death isn’t imminent. Others follow. Someone gets shrunk down and will possibly be stretched to see if a return to normal size is possible. There’s a reference to people’s eyes popping out and ending up all over the floor. In a song, cannibals eat a girl named Penelope. Bit of a spoiler, but in the end, most of the people whose situation seemed dire are alive, if a bit changed for their adventure.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – Wonka says the Oompa Loompas are drunk on Butterscotch and soda. He also refers to Buttergin and tonics. Most children will not pick up on the references to scotch and soda or gin and tonics as alcoholic beverages.
Frightening or Intense Things – The Buckets are very poor and always hungry. After a family member loses a job, it is reported that they began to starve.
