The BFG / SilverFin

Okay, yeah, so I've been reading kids books again. I had never read Roald Dahl's The BFG so I didn't mind reading it for work. I was reminded of what perfect writing for kids can be. I don't mean the story is perfect and a lot of people find Dahl's stories too gross, too dark, or even too silly for kids, but it's quite nice. Never mind that I feel like I'm swearing every time I mention the title. Dahl sets a scene up nicely:

In the silvery moonlight...the houses looked bent and crooked, like houses in a fairy-tale. Everything was pale and ghostly and milky-white. Across the road, you could see Mrs. Rance's shop where you bought buttons and wool and bits of elastic. It didn't look real. There was something dim and misty about that too.

Why you are buying "bits of elastic" is unclear, but that detail gives this book that delicious old-timey feel of a cozy childhood (even if said childhood is in an orphanage, from where you are soon to be snatched by a giant).

But the descriptive writing isn't why a kid reads this book. He probably reads it for the whizzpopping and all the talk of whether that's rude to do in public or not (yes, it's just what it sounds like) and all the made-up words. Dahl was a terrible speller but loved to play with language so you have giants with names like Maidmasher, Fleshlumpeater, Bloodbottler, and the Big Friendly Giant himself who can't speak properly but knows how to get his message across. There are lots of plays on words or meaning for adults and sophisticated readers. Thus the bad giants like to eat Turks because they taste of turkey. They avoid Greeks because, yes, they're greasy. The Welsh taste of fish (work it out for yourself) and the people of Wellington have a great boot taste. And don't think the BFG is just swizzfiggling us.

Dahl sticks up for the little guy and revenge is always swift and ugly, because so are the brutes in the real world.

Brutes are a nice segue into SilverFin, the first book in a series about "the young James Bond." It was exactly the kind of book I would have loved in middle school because I was reading the actual James Bond books at that age, which just seems weird now. I'm not sure why Charlie Higson felt compelled to create a back story for James Bond. Maybe just because he wanted a character at Eton to introduce himself to the housemaster as "Bond, James Bond." Mostly, I suspect, because he thought it would sell books to have a ready-made spy in the making for his series. It seems unnecessary because these are pretty rip-roaring adventures, though a bit anachronistic(set sometime in the 30s? but I kept forgetting that). It's more like the Hardy boys, except much more graphic and, yeah, frightening. The baddie is closer to what you'd expect from the new screen James Bond and it's a little weird to find in a kid's book. Seeing people being fed (somewhat discreetly) to ravenous eels is not something I'm going to forget soon.

I didn't learn much about why the future James Bond becomes who he is---um--today, but I did learn some really gross stuff about genetic engineering (mostly fake and unrealistic, but that's okay), and that it is possible (not once, but twice) to escape from horrific situations with a broken leg. A good read, though perhaps a little slow in places for adrenaline-rush young readers.