A happy quick read :)

** spoiler alert ** As always such a pleasure to read a Roald Dahl book. I’m just able to be completely absorbed into Dahl’s brain of the absurd and wonderful. Whilst this one is definitely not my favourite, I still very much enjoyed it. Really loved the premise that when the protagonist is cross her finger magically ‘teaches them a lesson’ by zapping them. Just such a fun concept. It was very short and I’m glad that it was. It could of been drawn out but Dahl kept it short and sweet. I thought some parts were a bit illogical, I’m not really sure they’re intentional or not. When the ducks and the Greggs are kind of ‘swapped’ the Greggs still have their own voices whereas the ducks answered the phone by quacking. That would have been fine for me. However later on they talk in human voices and unless they were pretending with the quacking it just didn’t make sense to me. I also thought that Dahl kind of painted the Greggs as evil. Whilst yes it’s not good to go out shooting animals just for fun, they’re not the worst people in the world. It was just a little too black and white for me. I know it sounds like I’m complaining about tiny things, but it’s a tiny book. Overall, had a lot of fun reading it, but it’s not my favourite of Dahl’s.

I actually did enjoy this book. It was nothing groundbreaking but it was good for a short story with a moral I agree with.

I loved this book when I was a kid, it was one of my favourites, I can still picture the hardback cover, reading it in bed under the covers with a torch after being told to go to sleep... But as an adult it didn’t have the same impact on me. I know it’s written for children, and it’s unfair to rate it as an adult when I’m not the target audience, but I see the political elements more and while I totally agree with them, it feels a bit much. I’m giving the book 4 stars... 5 stars from when I was 5 years old and loved it beyond belief and 3 stars from reading it as a 30 year old and finding it a little preachy... rounded together makes 4 stars :)

3.5 stars. It was a very cute story.

Quite short, but fun. I enjoyed it.