James is told that once he swallows the crystals with water, marvellous, fabulous and unbelievable things will happen to him, and he'll never be miserable again. Because of the story's occasional macabre and potentially frightening content, it has become a regular target of censors. The wing of a passing plane severs the strings, and the falling peach lands on the spire of the Empire State Building.

Mendes will no longer direct the "James and the Giant Peach" remake for Disney, which he was attached to less than a year ago. During his time in the role, he celebrated children's books and children's book illustration with a range of projects and exhibitions, and conceived the idea for the House of Illustration, the world's first centre dedicated to the art of illustration in all its forms.

He has won many prizes, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, the Eleanor Farjeon Award and the Kate Greenaway Medal, and in 1999 he was appointed the first Children’s Laureate. Recently I joined the Banned Books group and one of the group reads for this month was James and the Giant Peach.

There’s no real story - the peach heads to America for no reason - and plot elements were too contrived, even for a kid’s book. Things I liked - the idea that we shouldn't kill insects and bugs because we are scared of them, and there is a nice moment with the Spider who laments the loss of her family. The group befriends James and attribute their giant growth to having eaten the tiny green crystals that James had spilled. Sitting in a hut at the bottom of his garden, surrounded by odd bits and pieces such as a suitcase (used as a footrest), his own hipbone (which he'd had replaced) and a heavy ball of metal foil (made from years' worth of chocolate wrappers), Roald Dahl wrote some of the world's best-loved stories including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits, The Witches, The BFG, Fantastic Mr Fox, James and the Giant Peach and lots more. FYI - Wrote this review ~2017 from memory as I want to have a review for everything I remember reading.

I liked the more macabre elements of the story like the oddly sinister Cloud-Men and the “immense grey batlike creature swooping down towards them out of the dark” - Quentin Blake’s drawing really sells them too. James Henry Trotter is forced to live with his dreadful Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker after his beloved parents are killed in a tragic incident with a rhinoceros.

James found a new family and discovered his own self worth/self esteem during his adventures as he became a leader. But where will they go in their GIANT PEACH, and what will happen to the horrible aunts if they stand in their way? In doing so, we can find out how they contribute to the rest of us since everyone contributes to the world. Magic beans transforms an ordinary peach into a gigantic piece of fruit and its surrounding insect populace human-sized, before going on to rescue James Henry Trotter from his sad life with his evil aunts, Spiker and Sponge. And if you do, it doesn't matter because that's not an excuse for a meh book with no narrative through line.The insects are a funny bunch but James is an annoying little know-it-all and where he pulls his information from is anybody's guess. In May 2017, Mendes was no longer attached to the project due to his entering talks with Disney about directing a live-action film adaptation of Pinocchio.