Rarely, if ever, has a morality tale been dressed up in such an entertaining story. Dahl clearly has a point to make here, but never does the reader feel he is preaching; he's just reveling in giving spoiled kids their most perfectly just comeuppance.

Famous for his nasty characters, Dahl has peopled these pages with some highly memorable bad children. Readers everywhere love to laugh with glee at their crazy behavior--and its consequences. Joseph Schindelman's warm and quirky illustrations perfectly match the characters, and are far superior to those of Quentin Blake in this edition.

In the best fairy-tale tradition, Dahl doesn't hide the fact that the world can be a grim and unfair place. Charlie's depressing life of poverty at the beginning of the novel reflects this bleak view. But, also in the best fairy-tale tradition, Dahl appeals to the strong sense of natural justice in children, and invites them to revel in a marvelously imagined world where people, both good and bad, get exactly what they deserve.

In this case, the imagined world is the chocolate factory, where elfin factory workers, known as Oompa-Loompas, row Charlie, Grandpa Joe, and the others down a chocolate river in a yacht made out of a giant pink boiled sweet. It's a marvelous world where they make "eatable marshmallow pillows," "hot ice cream for cold days," "fizzy lifting drinks" that make you float, and "rainbow drops" that let you "spit in six different colours." And, in the end, it's just the place for Charlie.