James and the Giant Peach (novel)

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James and the Giant Peach is a children's book by Roald Dahl , first published in 1961 .

action

After his parents were eaten by a rhinoceros , James has to live with his terrible aunts, sponge and prong . His life is unbearable until something unbelievable happens: a stranger gives him the ingredients for a mysterious potion that is supposed to save James from his fate. However, when he tries to go back inside to hide the ingredients, he stumbles and the ingredients disappear into the ground, right in front of an old peach tree . A little later, however, a golden fruit grows on the tree, which has been sterile for a long time. This will soon be twice as big as the tree itself. While the aunts are displaying the peach for money, James crawls into the peach one night and makes friends with a horde of oversized insects that live in the core of the fruit. Shortly afterwards, a millipede breaks the peach off the tree. This runs over James' aunts and rolls over hills and mountains down to the Atlantic Ocean .

There the giant peach drifts towards New York. But on the long voyage by ship, some accidents happen. On the one hand, James and the insects are attacked by a hungry pack of sharks who want to eat their fill of the sweet flesh of the peach. In order not to drown miserably, James has the brilliant idea of ​​tying the peach to passing seagulls and flying away with them. After a while, the giant peach attracts the attention of so-called cloud men who, out of anger, chase it through a huge rainbow cloud. Finally, the insects are caught by a violent waterfall, but can escape the cloud men.

So they reach New York City , completely exhausted and more or less unexpectedly , where they land directly on the Empire State Building . This is of course of interest to the New York press, which makes James and his friends famous, happy residents of a giant peach.

Adaptations

In 1996 , based on the novel, the puppet film James and the Giant Peach was created . Directed by Henry Selick , Tim Burton was producer . Among other things, Susan Sarandon took part in the setting.

literature