Epic Win: The Big Friendly Giant
Submitted and Written by Malarie W
The Big Friendly Giant was the first real chapter book in the 3rd Grade. Remember snozzcumbers, whizzpoppers, and frobscottle? Catching and manifesting good dreams during witching hours everywhere Roald Dahl’s BFG was the BEST BOOK EVER.
Roald Dahl’s charming, fantastical novels were the first chapter books for many. Other Dahl classics include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and the wonderful yet underrated The Witches.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox is being adapted into a stop-animation film directed by Wes Anderson. It actually looks pretty good; here’s the trailer.
What do you guys think of the other Roald Dahl movies?
I loved that book as a kid! It was such a good book for any elementary student or anyone older. I remember reading the fantastic mr.fox book also.
Does anyone know of the exact release date of that movie?
BFG???…….Hmm inappropriate Book title….Doom 4 ever x)
BFG will always be Big F’n Gun to me too.
Glad I wasn’t the only one who immediately thought that.
BFG probably deserves its own page.
I still have this book somewhere! And speaking of Roald Dahl books being turned into movies, does anyone else here remember Matilda as a movie?
YES that was the only Roald Dahl movie I saw over half of. I only got 3/4 of the way through when I got scared, being 8, and made my grandma turn it off. It was good though.
Blast from the ass.
The Big Effing Gun! lol
I’m surprised that THE BFG hasn’t been adapted into a movie yet. You’d that with the popularity of Harry Potter, Roald Dahl’s books would be on the short list of movie adaptations.
I believe that JKR has acknowledged that Dahl is a bit of an influence.
BFG has been made into an animated movie, and it rules!
The only BFG I know is Big ******* Gun!
According to the trailer, the release date for Mr. Fox is Thanksgiving weekend.
ROALD DAHL FTW.
My personal favorite was “George’s Marvelous Medicine,” and now that I’m older I enjoy his adult stories like “The Umbrella Man” and “Royal Jelly.”
I LOVE his kids books and I’m glad that I’m not the only one that knows about the delightfully twisted short stories. I have several of the anthologies but I had to buy them in Australia and England. Why are they so hard to find here?
I found mine in a library…they had a whole shelf of his adult-oriented books. Have you tried book-buy sites like Amazon.com?
Roald Dahl had good stuff, but he could get really creepy sometimes with his writing. If you’ve read his short story “The Landlady”, you’d get what I mean.
Oh wow, I read basically all of Roald Dahl’s kids stuff between first and fifth grade. BFG may have been my favorite, or The Witches. The Twits and George’s Marvelous Medicine were also great. Come to think of it, all I ever read in elementary school was Roald Dahl, Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume. Dude, this takes me back…
my dad read this to me and my sisters when i was very young. of course they were pretty scared of the “evil” giants who came to steal children from their beds (they did, didn’t they?). and i think it was quite vulgar for a childrens book
at least in german. the title is “sophiechen und der riese”
I wish they wouldn’t use such big stars to voice things like this. He doesn’t sound like Fantastic Mr.Fox – he sounds like George Clooney in a sound booth.
Stop-motion still weirds me out. It only seems to work when a movie is supposed to be creepy, like Nightmare before Christmas
Dahl was a notorious anti-Semite. He once said that even a creepy little git like Hitler wouldn’t have gone after the Jews without some provocation.
So was Walt Disney. Also, Martin Luther King Jr. was a womanizer, and Lewis Carroll was in love with an eight-year-old whom he courted by writing books about her. Doesn’t make their works and legacy any less valid.
“Charming”….I think you misspelled “freakishly inappropriate for children”
Please elaborate on what makes this book ‘freakishly innapropriate’. The book is barely scary at all, and worst they have in it is farting…
Wow I never actually thought of Big F’n Gun till now. I read the book in 3rd grade and was a very sheltered child. Thank you for putting the words in my head forevermore
. I remember when the whole class read the book and watched the movie 
I always wanted to know what frobscottle tasted like…and I loved the way the BFG would talk. Now I have to go read the book again! And…probably watch the movie too.
Wow I never actually thought of Big F’n Gun till now. I read the book in 3rd grade and was a very sheltered child. Thank you for putting the words in my head forevermore
. I remember when the whole class read the book and watched the movie 
I always wanted to know what frobscottle tasted like…and I loved the way the BFG would talk. Now I have to go read the book again! And…probably watch the movie too.
I remember watching the animated film of that when I was about six. I was so terrified of the evil giants that I hit behing the sofa (a cliche, but true)! But it’s still my favourite Roald Dahl book.
My fave Roald Dahl book was, and always will be “The Twits”.
Mate, the BFG is epic!
All the anti-semite crap is debatable but it doesn’t draw away from the fact he’s a good writer: especially for kids, and hasn’t really pushed any agendas in his kid’s stuff apart from some adults are crap and some are brilliant. It’s got that icky factor that kids adore. He’s just got a gift and it would be so ad hominem to discard it because of his personal beliefs.
Roald Dahl, he’s epic win.
And the great thing is, Roald Dahl books still amaze and fascinate kids even in the High School reading level! His stories are classic and have a nice touch to them, along with a great twist. I would read Roald’s books any day.
the Big F’n Grandpa, a tale of a large geriatric on a rampage through downtown cities in search of peppridge farm sausages and prune juice.
LOL