James and the Giant Peach

James Henry Trotter is a boy who lives happily with his parents in a house by the sea. Unfortunately, when he is four years old, an oddly carnivorous raging rhinoceros escapes from the London Zoo and eats James' parents whilst they are on a shopping trip in the capital. He ends up living with his two cruel aunts, Spiker and Sponge. Instead of caring for him, they physically and verbally abuse him, isolate him in their ramshackle hilltop house and garden, dole out sadistic punishments for the smallest infractions, force him to sleep on bare floorboards in a prison cell-like room, and force him to do heavy chores most of the time that they can't be bothered to do themselves (they also do not call him by his real name, but insults like "you disgusting little beast" or "you miserable creature").

One day, after James has been living with his aunts for three years, he meets a mysterious man who gives him a bag of magical crystals, instructing James to use them in a potion that would change his life for the better. While returning home, James stumbles and spills the bag on the ground, losing the crystals as they dig themselves underground. A nearby barren peach tree, in turn, produces a single peach which soon grows to the size of a house. Spiker and Sponge build a fence around it and earn money by selling viewing tickets to tourists; James is locked in the house, only able to see the peach and the crowds through the bars of his bedroom window.

After the tourists have gone, James is assigned to clean the rubbish around the peach and finds a hole inside it. He crawls in, through a tunnel, and he finds himself in a room, in the enlarged peach pit. There, he meets Centipede, Miss Spider, Old Green Grasshopper, Earthworm, Ladybug, Glowworm, and Silkworm who become his friends.

The next day, Centipede cuts the stem of the peach, causing it to roll away and crush James' aunts. It reaches the sea and is surrounded by ravenous sharks. James uses Miss Spider and Silkworm to make threads, while Earthworm is used as bait and draws 501 seagulls[7] to the peach, whereupon the threads are tied on their necks. The peach is lifted off the water. High above the clouds, the peach encounters the Cloud-Men, who are portrayed as responsible for weather phenomena like hailstorms and rainbows. Centipede mocks the Cloud-Men, who throw things at the group until they get clear.

Later, James realizes that the group has reached New York City. The wing of a passing plane severs the strings, and the falling peach lands on the spire of the Empire State Building. It is mistaken for a bomb at first, resulting in the arrival of police and firemen. Calming the crowd, James tells his story, and becomes friends with many children in New York; they eat the peach and James and his friends get their own jobs, now residing in Central Park, in the pit of the peach.

• James Henry Trotter – The seven-year-old protagonist.
• The Old Man – A friendly yet mysterious man, who initiates James' adventure.
• Aunt Spiker – A thin, tall, cruel and evil woman; Aunt Sponge's sister.
• Aunt Sponge – A fat, treacherous, greedy and evil woman; Aunt Spiker's sister.
• The Centipede – A male centipede, depicted as a boisterous rascal and proud of his 'hundred legs', even though he only has 42.
• The Earthworm – A male earthworm who often quarrels with the Centipede.
• The Old Green Grasshopper – A male grasshopper, who is the eldest and most cultured of the animals.
• The Ladybug – A kind, motherly female ladybird.
• Miss Spider – A good-natured female spider who takes care of James.
• The Glowworm – A female glowworm, who is used as a lighting system for the Peach.
• The Silkworm – A female silkworm, who assists Miss Spider in the production of thread, both before and after the adventure.

Despite Roald Dahl having enjoined his publishers not to "so much as change a single comma in one of my books", in February 2023 Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Books, announced it would be re-writing portions of many of Dahl's children's novels, changing the language to, in the publisher's words, "ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today."[8] The decision was met with sharp criticism from groups and public figures including authors Salman Rushdie[9][10] and Christopher Paolini,[11] British prime minister Rishi Sunak,[9][10] Queen Camilla,[9][12] Kemi Badenoch,[13] PEN America,[9][10] and Brian Cox.[13] Dahl's publishers in the United States, France, and the Netherlands announced they had declined to incorporate the changes.[9]

In James and the Giant Peach, more than seventy changes were made, such as removing references to Sponge as fat (including writing an entirely new poem), changing queer to strange, removing references to skin colour (such as "his face white with horror", "looking white and thin", and the Earthworm's "lovely pink skin"), and changing Cloud-Men to Cloud-People.[14][15]

• 2011 – ISBN 0-14-310634-1 (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition paperback, 50th anniversary, illustrated by Jordan Crane and Nancy Ekholm Burkert, introduction by Aimee Bender)
• 2003 – ISBN 0-06-054272-1 (audio CD read by Jeremy Irons)
• 1996 – ISBN 0679880909 (paperback, illustrated by Lane Smith)
• 1995 – ISBN 0-14-037156-7 (paperback, illustrated by Quentin Blake)
• 1994 – ISBN 1-55734-441-8 (paperback)
• 1990 – ISBN 0-14-034269-9 (paperback, illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark)
• 1980 – ISBN 0-553-15113-4 (Bantam Skylark paperback)
• 1961 – ISBN 0-394-81282-4 (hardcover)
• 1961 – ISBN 978-0-394-91282-0 (library binding, illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert)

• Charity readings of the story by Taika Waititi and celebrities