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Roald Dahl

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The BFG by Roald Dahl Review: A Giant Classic for Young Readers

Originally published in 1982, Roald Dahl's The BFG remains one of children's literature's most enduring novels, built on an unlikely friendship between a small orphaned girl and a gentle giant, and backed by sales of more than 37 million copies worldwide as of 2009.

LuvemBooks Verdict

Best for

Children aged roughly seven to ten — and the adults reading aloud to them — who delight in invented language, absurdist logic, and a central friendship between a brave small girl and a gentle giant outcast.

Worth it if

The reader (or the child in question) is drawn to imaginative world-building, gleefully gross humour, and the kind of invented dialect — Dahl's "Gobblefunk" — that makes language itself part of the fun; it also works as a strong first entry point into Dahl's wider body of work.

Skip if

Readers who found the opening chapters thrillingly menacing may be disappointed by a final act that critics have described as loose and convenient — and anyone with strong feelings about textual integrity should carefully verify which edition they are buying, given the 2023 Puffin Books editorial revisions.

What readers & critics say

Kirkus Reviews found the novel's opening irresistibly shivery but judged the BFG's mixed-up speech "simply tiresome" and the resolution told in a "higgledy-piggledy home-made manner," suggesting the book's execution does not always match its premise's promise. Wikipedia's reception entry notes broader cultural validation: the novel ranked 56th in the BBC's "Big Read" public survey and 88th in School critical coverage's all-time best children's novels list, with over 37 million copies sold as of 2009.

“Dahl's elemental fix on kids' consciousness gets this off to a surefire shivery start.”

— Kirkus Reviews
Sources: Kirkus Reviews, Wikipedia
4.7from 13,383 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score

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Preview the actual pages, via Google Books
Trending Now
Cultural Resurgence

The BFG by Roald Dahl is Trending

Young Readers Are Falling for The BFG All Over Again

The BFG is getting fresh attention this June, with young readers and parents rediscovering why Roald Dahl's giant-sized adventure is such a reliable hit. A recent review from an 8-year-old reader sums it up perfectly: it's funny, fast-moving, and hard to put down.

Sometimes a classic just keeps finding new fans, and The BFG is doing exactly that right now. A recent review by Abby, age 8, from NSW calls it a 'humorous adventure book that will have you laughing every page' — and that kind of kid-approved enthusiasm has a way of spreading. When real young readers are talking about a book, other parents and caregivers take notice.

The BFG has always had a special place in Roald Dahl's lineup because it strikes that rare balance — it's silly and imaginative, but it also has genuine warmth at its core. Sophie and the BFG's unlikely friendship is the kind of story that sticks with kids long after they've closed the last page. It's the sort of book families return to across generations.

If you've got a young reader at home who's ready to graduate from picture books but isn't quite there with longer chapter books yet, this is a great pick to have on hand. It's accessible, funny, and just magical enough to make reading feel like a treat rather than a chore.

Source:
Alphabet Soup
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Updated Jun 17, 2026
In This Review
  • What Works & What Doesn't
  • What the Story Is and How It Works
  • Place in the Genre and Its Cultural Footprint
  • What Dahl Does Distinctively Well
  • Genuine Limitations Worth Noting
  • Who This Book Is For

What Works & What Doesn't

What Works
  • A genuinely inventive premise built on a specific, memorable central friendship between Sophie and the BFG
  • The BFG's invented 'Gobblefunk' dialect is a distinctive creative achievement that young readers consistently respond to
  • Extraordinary cultural staying power — over 37 million copies sold, BBC Big Read recognition, and Royal Mail commemorative stamps
  • Illustrated by Quentin Blake, whose long creative partnership with Dahl is itself part of the novel's legacy
  • Works as both a read-aloud and an independent read for its target age range of roughly seven to ten
What Doesn't
  • Some critics find the novel's final act — the military helicopter rescue orchestrated by the BFG — anticlimactic relative to the menacing energy of its opening
  • The ongoing editorial revisions to Dahl's texts by Puffin Books mean that buyers seeking the original, unaltered text should verify which edition they are purchasing
A children's novel that has sold more than 37 million copies and spawned a Steven Spielberg film, The BFG is as close to a modern classic as children's literature gets.

What the Story Is and How It Works

The BFG opens at the witching hour, with Sophie — a small, imaginative, nearsighted girl living in an orphanage — unable to sleep. Peering out her window, she spots a towering figure in the street carrying a suitcase and a trumpet. The giant sees her looking, reaches through the window, and carries her off to Giant Country: a desolate land populated by ten giants in all. Sophie braces to be eaten, but the giant who took her is the Big Friendly Giant — the BFG — and eating humans is precisely what he refuses to do. He abducted Sophie solely to prevent her from telling anyone she had seen a real giant, which, he explains, would result in his capture and display in a zoo. The central situation, then, is a mismatched alliance: a tiny orphan and a gentle outcast giant, surrounded by nine far larger and more violent neighbours who roam the earth each night consuming human beings. The novel traces how Sophie and the BFG devise a plan to stop those nine giants — ultimately enlisting the Queen of England herself — and how the BFG earns the official title of Royal Dream-Blower and finds a settled place in the world.

Place in the Genre and Its Cultural Footprint

Originally published in 1982, The BFG grew out of a short story Dahl had embedded in his novel Danny, the Champion of the World, and it represents one of the most successful expansions in his body of work. According to Wikipedia's reception summary, the novel was listed at number 56 in the BBC's "Big Read" survey of the British public, and in 2012 School Library Journal ranked it number 88 among all-time best children's novels. That same year, the BFG and Sophie were commemorated on Royal Mail postage stamps — a mark of cultural penetration that few fictional characters achieve. More than one million copies sell worldwide each year, a figure that places it in genuinely rare company for a four-decade-old children's title. A 1989 animated adaptation, a stage version, and Steven Spielberg's Disney live-action film have each extended its reach to successive generations.

What Dahl Does Distinctively Well

The novel's greatest creative asset is the BFG's voice. Dahl constructs an entire idiosyncratic dialect for the giant — "Gobblefunk," as it has come to be known — a speech full of invented words, scrambled idioms, and cheerful malapropisms that is as much a character trait as anything the BFG does in the plot. A blog discussion hosted by Ohio State University noted that the BFG's distinctive speech, which stems from never having been formally taught, functions as a vehicle for one of the book's central ideas: Sophie neither mocks nor dismisses the giant for how he speaks but instead works alongside him, modelling acceptance rather than othering. Dahl also populates Giant Country with the kind of gleefully gross logic that his young readers have always responded to — the giants adjust their nightly human-hunting routes partly on the basis of flavour, so people from Greece taste too greasy and people from Panama taste like hats. This inventive absurdity, applied with rigorous internal consistency, is a hallmark of Dahl's method and is on full display here.

Genuine Limitations Worth Noting

Not every element of the novel lands with equal force. A Kirkus-adjacent assessment preserved in the verified sources describes the book's conclusion — in which military helicopters rope the sleeping giants and haul them to a pit on the BFG's direction — as told in Dahl's "higgledy-piggledy home-made manner, which is rarely disarming here despite the pandering," suggesting that readers who come for the tightly wound menace of the opening chapters may find the resolution somewhat loose and convenient. The novel is also at the centre of an ongoing publishing debate: in February 2023, Puffin Books announced revisions to language across several of Dahl's children's titles, a decision that generated significant public controversy given Dahl's explicit instruction that publishers should not alter his work. Readers and parents with strong feelings about textual integrity should note which edition they are purchasing, as different printings may reflect different editorial choices.

Who This Book Is For

Dahl dedicated The BFG to his eldest daughter Olivia, who died of measles encephalitis at the age of seven in 1962 — a dedication that gives the novel a quiet emotional gravity its young audience need not fully understand to feel. The book is designed for readers roughly between the ages of seven and ten, and its combination of genuine threat, absurd comedy, invented language, and a child protagonist who is consistently smarter and braver than the adults around her makes it well suited to that audience. Quentin Blake, whose decades-long collaboration with Dahl is itself a piece of children's publishing history, provides the illustrations. Readers who have already loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach will find The BFG operating in the same imaginative register — and those encountering Dahl for the first time will find it a strong entry point into his world.

Sources & Further Reading

The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.

  1. Cited in this review
  2. 1
    The BFG by Roald Dahl–Summary and Analysis | Audible.com

    audible.com

  3. Further reading
  4. 2
    Roald Dahl — author profileHigh-authority source

    Roald Dahl, Wikipedia

  5. 3
    The BFG - Wikipedia

    en.wikipedia.org

  6. 4
    Text Review of “The BFG” by Roald Dahl | Comparative Studies 1100: Introduction to the Humanities, Spring 2020

    u.osu.edu

  7. 5
    THE BFG | Kirkus Reviews

    kirkusreviews.com

  8. 6
    The BFG by Roald Dahl (Paperback) | Scholastic Book Clubs

    clubs.scholastic.com

  9. 7
    The BFG by Roald Dahl | Scholastic Education

    shop.scholastic.com

  10. 8
    The BFG Summary & Analysis | Homework Help

    americanliterature.com

  11. 9
    The BFG by Roald Dahl book review - Fantasy Book Review

    fantasybookreview.co.uk

  12. 10
    [The BFG]: A Review – greenish bookshelf

    greenishbookshelf.com

  13. 11
    A Book Review on "The BFG" by Roald Dahl

    sisandchrys.com

  14. 12
    The BFG by Roald Dahl Book Reviews - YA Books Central

    yabookscentral.com

  15. 13
    BOOK REVIEW: The BFG by Roald Dahl | Tiger Riding for Beginners

    berniegourley.com

  16. 14
    The BFG by Roald Dahl | Summary, Characters & Themes - Lesson | Study.com

    study.com

  17. 15
    The BFG by Roald Dahl: 9780679428138 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

    penguinrandomhouse.com

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