Book Review: "The Enormous Crocodile" by Roald Dahl, pictures by Quentin Blake

*Get the book on Amazon here*

I've been more familiar with film and television adaptations of Roald Dahl's books than the actual books themselves. I never read them, especially after seeing the films "James and the Giant Peach," "Matilda" (1996), and "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory;" heck, he even wrote the screenplay to "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"- all of which I didn't like. I picked up The Enormous Crocodile out of a pile of free books on a whim. I had heard Dahl's publisher was going to start changing some of his works, and I figured I'd grab this thin Scholastic edition in case it was one of the stories in the woke's sights. It was. There are spoilers throughout the rest of the review.

Highlighted by Quentin Blake's wonderful illustrations, Dahl tells the story of an enormous crocodile who decides he's hungry for children on one fine day. He gloats to other animals in the jungle, telling them all he has "secret plans and clever tricks" to attain his meal. He finally lumbers into a town to put these plans and tricks in motion, not expecting the reactions from the animals he has gloated to.

The story is cute, probably more appropriate for grade school children than toddlers. The Enormous Crocodile doesn't learn any sort of lesson, and the ending is not one of hope and rainbows. Parallels can be drawn between the story and today's online narcissism even though this was published in 1978. A little online reading shows that the original publishers were removing the description of the children as "ugly" and "fat" and identifying them as "children," not "boys and girls." Of course, none of these changes make much sense. While new readers may not notice or care, changing Dahl's original language softens the Crocodile as the villain in the story. His dialogue already sounds more like letters written by serial killer Albert Fish than an imaginary hungry crocodile, but these few words might make a fat kid feel bad about themselves? I'm literally morbidly obese and well aware of my physical appearance, but I am doing something about it and not hoping someone will change the world around me to fit my feelings. I might pick up more Dahl as time goes on, avoiding any new woke editions. This was a nice introduction to the author, and goes into my collection of physical media untouched by the thought police.