James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Modern Fantasy (Chapter Book)

James and the Giant Peach is a book about James Henry Trotter, a young boy who is forced to live with his evil aunts after his parents die in a tragic accident at the London Zoo. His aunts, Spiker and Sponge, treat James horribly. One day James accidentally spills a bag of magic crystals all over the old peach tree in the yard, and in no time at all the peach tree has grown a tree the size of a house! There are insects living there, and the centipede bites through the stem of the giant peach, and they begin to roll away, flattening James' evil aunts in the process! The giant peach ends up traveling all the way to New York City. James emerges from the giant peach and tells his story, and the people of New York City hail him and the insects heroes and throw them a parade. The hollow pit of the peach becomes a mansion in Central Park that belongs to James Henry Trotter, who writes a very successful book- James and the Giant Peach!

I think that this book would be a really good book to use when trying to transition students from picture books over to chapter books. It is definitely a chapter book, but it also has a lot of neat pictures that would help students form mental pictures. I also think that this book is a really good example of the Modern Fantasy genre, and would be a great book to use when teaching students about the different genres. It would be a great book to use when talking about prediction, as well!