📚 Book📚 Kids · Ages 7–10Fantasy / Sci-Fi

The BFG (1982)

About This Book

Sophie, a young orphan, is snatched from her bed by a twenty-four-foot giant and carried off to Giant Country, where she discovers that her captor is the Big Friendly Giant, a gentle soul who catches dreams and delivers them to sleeping children. Together they must stop the other giants, monstrous brutes who gobble up human beings every night, and their plan involves the Queen of England herself. The book is tender, thrilling, and laugh-out-loud funny in equal measure.

Why It's a Classic

Dahl considered The BFG his most personal book, and it shows in the warmth between Sophie and her enormous friend. The BFG's mangled, inventive language ("whizzpopping," "human beans," "delumptious") is one of Dahl's greatest creations, a complete dialect that children adopt instantly and parents find themselves using at the dinner table. The contrast between the BFG's gentleness and the other giants' savagery gives the book genuine stakes without sacrificing its playful tone. The sequence where Sophie and the BFG visit the Queen of England is comedy gold, grounded in such precise domestic detail that Buckingham Palace feels completely real. Dahl also named Sophie after his first granddaughter, and that personal connection gives the relationship between the two characters an emotional depth that transcends the book's fantastical premise.

Fun Fact

Dahl named Sophie after his first granddaughter and used to tell her BFG stories before the book was written. The book's illustrator, Quentin Blake, has said that the BFG is the Dahl character who most resembles Dahl himself: tall, gentle, and a master of invented language. In 2016, Steven Spielberg directed a film adaptation, making it one of the few Dahl stories to receive a big-budget live-action treatment during the author's estate period.

Parent Note

The nine man-eating giants are described vividly, and they discuss eating children in terms that younger readers may find frightening. There is also a famously extended joke about whizzpopping (giant flatulence) that children find hilarious and some parents find tiresome. The emotional core of the story is gentle and reassuring, making it suitable for most children ages 7 and up.