One Potato Review

Really, Roald Dahl. Not “Inspired by – “ or “Imagined by – “ still there’s something a little unsettling initially about finding this author outside of his natural environment, namely the chapter book format with illustrations by Quentin Blake. Patrick Benson proves a pretty good match – his pixelated rendering of darkened too-tall forests gets right to the heart of Dahl’s menace – and it’s only a couple of pages before you realize this is, in fact, a product of the imagination that brought us the The Witches and The BFG, among other frightful rumors that just happen to turn out to be true. Here it’s the Red-Hot-Smoke-Belching Gruncher who actually manages to live up to all of its description. Dahl had a lot of nerve to get our hopes up that way, but he always managed to come through, with nary a redemption – and that was probably the nerviest strategy of all. This book is finally about the length of Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile or The Magic Finger, and so probably best suited to older, more patient, readers, still there’s nothing very complicated about the story of a little boy who is “awfully tired of being good,” and ends up witnessing a little magic for his transgressions. With a civilization of miniature humanoid people who inhabit the trees, and always evocative Hornswoggles and Snozzwanglers and Vermicious Knids thrown in for good measure.