The BFG- Modern Fantasy

The BFG
By: Roald Dahl

Sophie, an orphan, who has problems sleeping at night. She gets out of bed and sees a strange giant blowing something in the windows. When the giant, known as the BFG (Big Friendly Giant) comes to her window, he kidnaps her and her away to Giant Country. She learns that the BFG's job is to collect and deliver sweet and pleasant dreams to children. That evening, she joins him as he makes his nightly deliveries. However, they encounter problems, when they discover that the mean giants are following them and are planning to eat the children. Sophie comes up with a plan to create a dream to tell the queen of England to expose the mean giants' plans. With the help of the queen and and the military, they decide to capture the giants while sleeping and carry them away. They are forced to stay in a pit and eat disgusting vegetables, while the BFG and Sophie live happily in houses next to the castle.

I would use this book for literature circles in my future classroom. It is a great book to study authors themes and intentions for the books that they write. This book will keep the students interested and engaged, while eliciting a sense of wonder in them. This is done by the nonsense words that Dahl uses frequently throughout the novel. At the end of the novel, I would lead the students in a discussion about Dahl, and I would have them think of words to describe him as an author, in which they would have to support with the text. I would be sure to share my ideas to, portraying him as imaginative and inventive due to the words that the creates in the story. This would be an introduction to the activity. We would then move into a discussion about the words, and create a "Class Dictionary for The BFG."The students would find the nonsense words and use the context clues to develop a meaning for them. We would record the words and the student generated definitions. I would also let the students make up their own words and definitions to add to the dictionary. This activity would be a really engaging and fun wrap-up for the students, on this novel.