Willy Wonka's famous chocolate factory is opening at last!
But only five lucky children will be allowed inside. And the winners are: Augustus Gloop, an enormously fat boy whose hobby is eating; Veruca Salt, a spoiled-rotten brat whose parents are wrapped around her little finger; Violet Beauregarde, a dim-witted gum-chewer with the fastest jaws around; Mike Teavee, a toy pistol-toting gangster-in-training who is obsessed with television; and Charlie Bucket, Our Hero, a boy who is honest and kind, brave and true, and good and ready for the wildest time of his life!
1 STAR
I picked this book up on a whim. I had planned to read another book to complete the challenge, "read a book about something you want to do" for Booktube-A-Thon but I was hating it so I picked this one instead. It's a bit of cheating, but not many wouldn't want to win a lifetime supply of chocolate, so I am counting it. I have seen the movie once or twice and although I enjoyed it, it isn't a childhood favorite of mine. But I thought it could be fun to read and then in the future sometime maybe re-watch the movie since it's been so long. So here we go with my review! Also, there may be spoilers, which I am hoping is okay. The story is over fifty years old so I feel like it's been enough time that most have either read or watched this story in some way. If you haven't just know that I kind of hated this book a bunch and I think it teaches children harmful messages.
I ended up listening to the audiobook, and I think the narrator did a fantastic job. It was fun and really animated which I think definitely suits the whimsical spirit of the story. Because it's a short children's story on the younger age of the spectrum, the characters are not super fleshed out. I think it's also done on purpose to help Dahl's super negative message, more on that later. But because the characters aren't really all that fleshed out I didn't care much about any of them. All of the kids, other than Charlie, are described pretty harshly from their looks to their personalities and the author put Charlie on some pedestal of the Golden Child. From the tone of the book, Charlie's family's judgements, and the descriptions, it's obvious that the other four kids are deemed unworthy of their golden ticket status. It vilifies the other children and their family which felt so weird to read in a children's book. It teaches the worst lessons. Charlie isn't really ever put through any tests like the other kids, and he gets what he wants.
It rubbed me the wrong way at how preachy the whole message of the story is all the way through the book. I get it, the book was published in 1964 and some of the opinions were probably more relevant but as someone who read it in 2018 - it doesn't age well. Dahl basically beats the reader over the head repeatedly with over generalized opinions. First, all the kids that aren't incredibly poor like Charlie and his family, are spoiled rotten brats the entire time. Out of the five kids who are awarded a tour of the chocolate factory, the only one who is polite is Charlie. I was hoping that by the end of the book the kids (and honestly, even the parents) would learn from Charlie, and maybe sympathize with him and maybe leave the factory better people. I think that would have been a great and more natural thing to happen but instead they leave with their lifetime supply of chocolate (they all win get this the moment they found their ticket basically) and have been humiliated forcibly and/or changed for the "better". Augustus is now not fat (more on this later), Verruca and her family are covered in trash which I assume is supposed to humble them because of their wealth, Mike TV is thin and stretched out like taffy and now I assume his family won't let him watch television anymore, and Violet is now permanently a bright purple? Instead of them all learning an actual valuable lesson they've been humiliated and treated like garbage. Which I shouldn't be surprised about, considering the way Wonka seems to work his Oompah-Loompah workers he doesn't seem to really value people's lives. Second, the Mike TV situation, the weird outdated disgust for television was ridiculous. Maybe he had a point in the 60's. I don't know if the percentage of reading in children dropped in the 60's or not but the message was NOT subtle and eye roll inducing. And third, apparently according to Wonka, all fat people are disgusting. I haven't been silent in the past with my hatred of fatphobia in books and the media in general, but the fact that this amount of fatphobia is in a children's book is vile. I am incredibly pissed that this deemed okay to read to children. From the really awful descriptions of the fat characters (both kids and adults) to the dehumanizing actions towards these characters had me angry and uncomfortable the entire time. After reading this book I looked up reviews to see if anyone else had an issue and it seems to be a problem with a lot of Dahl's stories which is disheartening. Especially since he's a childhood favorite for so many. I read and enjoyed some of his books when I was a kid, it makes me feel for little Heather (and other young fat kids) who read his books and if/when she noticed the fatphobia how she could have felt bad about it. I think the story should have had an overwhelming message of compassion and learning from each other and not hatred and negativity. These are children's books. How is this amount of cruelty okay in a children's book? Sure, the kids in this story were annoying little brats at times but they were also just kids. I think Dahl wanted the message to be "if you're polite and good, you get whatever you want and if you're a brat and a nightmare, you get the punishment you deserve" and first, we all know that is unfortunately not true. But second, that isn't the message that is perceived (by me, obviously) so I think it was a bit of a fail because of how exaggerated the characters are. Charlie is perceived as this perfect child who never is punished for his selfishness (ie: buying candy with the money he found instead of bringing it home to his family) because in the end his greedy gluttonous actions worked out for him. But the other kids are these exaggerated characters who are also gluttonous, prideful, greedy, lazy are punished for being that way.
Maybe I am just not into the "kids these days" grumbling attitude some people seem to have. The narrator has this holier than thou complex that is just dripping throughout the story. If you can somehow look past all of this, the only good parts of the book are the imagination and inventiveness of the chocolate factory. I liked the ideas from the different types of candy, the colorful world, and the happy vibes you get from the factory. That is if you look past that Wonka has a whole race of people working day and night for him and paid in only chocolate.
Overall, I don't recommend this book to anyone. I know people may be like "Heather you're reading too far into a children's story" and yeah I get it. But you're right, these are children's stories. I can't look past how many cruel or negative messages this book promotes. It had a lot of potential and I found the movie to be fun when I was younger but now I can honestly say this book is one of my absolute least favorites. A part of me wants to read the ones I did read as a kid, but I am also worried now that my childhood favorites were just as bad. It is easy for me to review this one without much of a bias because it's not a childhood favorite of mine. But I wonder if I will be able to take off the rose colored glasses that nostalgia often comes with to properly review Matilda or The BFG.
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