This is a book with dark humour, but still very enjoyable.
Plot
One night, Little Sophie sees a big giant in the street where she lives. Of course she gets scared and tries to hide, but it’s too late. The giant has already heard her, so he puts his hand through the window and kidnaps the little girl. She is taken to his cave and the adventures will begin.
BFG or Big Friendly Giant is not like the other giants. He blows dreams to children at night, because he doesn’t want to eat them like the other giants do. This story tells how BFG and Sophie save all the innocent people from being eaten by horrible giants at night and how they get help from the Queen of England herself to stop this.
Morality
Sophie is a wonderful character and she thinks morals are very important. She never does anything bad, because she knows that it would be wrong. BFG wants to do the right things; he doesn’t always know what to do, but he is trying. The other giants have very poor morals, but the reader does understand at once that this is bad. So the morals are shown very well. There is no doubt about who is good and who is bad.
Spiritual Content
This story is probably not written from a Christian view, but Sophie says something like “Oh God” a few times. The only “magic” in this story is that BFG blows dreams to sleeping children. Giants can be seen as mythological creatures. Except for this there is no spiritual content.
Violence
The giants have fun beating the BFG. He seems to be all right, but he doesn’t like it. As was mentioned, the other giants do eat innocent people from all over the world. This is described somewhat, and it’s quite scary. They also have violent-sounding names, like "The Butcher Boy."
Toward the end there is a "battle" in which several characters are kidnapped and carried away by helicopters; they are then forced to eat a nasty food called snozzcumber for the rest of their lives. Later it is mentioned that several men die when they fall into the clutches of the human-eating giants.
Drug and Alcohol Content
A mention of alcohol, but no one drank it.
Sexual Content
The book is not about love, and so no one falls in love. But the giants (except BFG) wear some kind of skirt and nothing more.
Crude or Profane Language or Content
The language is very clean, but now and then there are some words that might be considered bad - not vulgar words, though. Some flatulence caused by a food that the BFG eats.
Conclusion
This is a very sweet children's book, and it’s easy to enjoy. The story is written in a wonderful way, and even though the humor is dark at times, it is still a fun book. Some words are hard to understand because of the funny way in which the BFG talks. Sometimes the story can be pretty scary and younger children might get nightmares. The book can probably be read by both older and younger people, because it’s a story for everybody. It also tells about important morals, and is the kind of book that makes us think about those things.
This review is brought to you by Queen Lucy of Narnia.
