The BFG

Plot

The story is about a young orphaned girl named Sophie, living in a girl's orphanage run by the cantankerous and abusive Mrs. Clonkers. One night, Sophie sees a large, cloaked person blowing something via a trumpet-like object into a bedroom window down the street. She is discovered by the mysterious person, who carries her to his homeland of Giant Country.

There, he identifies himself as the Big Friendly Giant ('BFG'), who nightly blows bottled dreams into the bedrooms of children, and explains the other type of giants that eat humans, mostly children. Because the BFG refuses to eat people or steal food from humans, he subsists on a foul-tasting vegetable known as a snozzcumber. It's like a cucumber with black strips.

Sophie and the BFG quickly become friends; but Sophie is soon put in danger by the sudden arrival of the man-eating giant Bloodbottler, who suspects the BFG of harboring a human. Sophie hides in the snozzcumber, unknown to the BFG, and the BFG offers the snozzcumber to the Bloodbottler, hoping that its foul taste will repel him from the area; whereupon the Bloodbottler spits out the snozzcumber and Sophie, and leaves in disgust. When Sophie announces she is thirsty, the BFG treats her to a fizzy drink called frobscottle, which causes noisy flatulence because of the bubbles sinking downwards. The BFG calls this "Whizpopping". The next morning, the BFG takes Sophie to Dream Country to catch more dreams, but is tormented by the man-eating giants along the way; notably by their leader, the Fleshlumpeater, the largest and most fearsome.

In Dream Country, the BFG demonstrates his dream-catching skills to Sophie; but the BFG mistakenly captures a nightmare and uses it to start a fight among the other giants when Fleshlumpeater has a nightmare about Jack. Sophie later persuades him to approach the Queen of England toward imprisoning the other giants. To this end, she uses her knowledge of London to navigate the BFG to Buckingham Palace, and the BFG creates a nightmare, introducing knowledge of the man-eating giants to the Queen, and leaves Sophie in the Queen's bedroom to confirm it. Because the dream included the knowledge of Sophie's presence, the Queen believes her and speaks with the BFG.

After considerable effort by the palace staff to create a table, chair, and cutlery of appropriate size, the BFG is given a delicious breakfast, and the Queen telephones the King of Sweden and the Sultan of Baghdad to confirm the BFG's story – the giants having visited those locations on the previous two nights – then summons the Head of the British Army and the Marshal of the Royal Air Force. The said officers, though initially belligerent and skeptical, eventually agree to cooperate.

A fleet of helicopters then follows Sophie and the BFG to the giants' homeland, where the giants are tied up as they sleep. The only one not easily caught is the Fleshlumpeater who wakes up as the British attempt to tie him up, but Sophie and the BFG trick him into allowing his own capture by claiming that he has been poisoned by a venomous snake so that he will put his hands and feet together to be tied up. The man-eating giants are suspended under the helicopters and carried back to London where they are then imprisoned in a deep pit where they are only fed snozzcumbers.

Afterwards, a huge castle is built as the BFG's new house, with a little cottage next door for Sophie. While they are living happily in England, with several gifts coming in for many years from the governments of every country ever targeted by the giants (notably England, Sweden, Iraq, Arabia, India, Panama, Tibet, the United States, Chile, Jersey and New Zealand), the BFG writes a book of their adventures, which is then identified as the novel itself.

Characters

Awards and recognition

The BFG has won numerous awards including the 1985 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis as the year's best children's book, in its German translation Sophiechen und der Riese and the 1991 Read Alone and Read Aloud BILBY Awards.

In 2003 it was ranked number 56 in The Big Read, a two-stage survey of the British public by the BBC to determine the "Nation's Best-loved Novel".

The U.S. National Education Association listed The BFG among the "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children" based on a 2007 online poll.

In 2012 it was ranked number 88 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with primarily U.S. audience. It was the fourth of four books by Dahl among the Top 100, more than any other writer.

English

Selected translations

Comic strip

Between 1986 and 1998 the novel was adapted into a newspaper comic by journalist Brian Lee and artist Bill Asprey. It was published in the Mail on Sunday and originally a straight adaptation, with scripts accepted by Roald Dahl himself. After a while the comic started following its own storylines and continued long after Dahl's death in 1990.

Stage play

The play was adapted for the stage by David Wood and premiered at the Wimbledon Theatre in 1991.

1989 film

On Christmas Day in 1989, ITV aired an animated film based on the book, with David Jason providing the voice of the BFG and Amanda Root as the voice of Sophie. The film was dedicated to animator George Jackson who worked on numerous Cosgrove Hall Productions.

2016 film

A theatrical film adaptation was produced by Walt Disney Pictures, directed by Steven Spielberg, and starring Mark Rylance as the BFG, as well as, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton, Jemaine Clement, Rebecca Hall, Rafe Spall, and Bill Hader. The film was released on 1 July 2016 to positive critical reception.