A cherishable story (Esio Trot - Roald Dahl)

Member Name: MI9to5

Product:	Esio Trot - Roald Dahl
Date:	30/01/09 (113 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun to read

Disadvantages: None

Now I'm not the world's greatest Roald Dahl fan but I do really like some of his short stories, although I have seen a lot of the longer ones on film when I was little. I first read the book I am going to review today, Esio Trot, when I was about eight or so. I was in my Roald Dahl collection book and was one of the stories that I enjoyed the most. I re-read the story last week, almost eleven years on after my brother left his copy of it on the sofa downstairs.

The book is like most of Roald Dahl's offerings rather simple and easy to read. The story is rather vibrant and entertaining and the covers of the book can merely contain the colourful characters bursting to get out. The book itself was first published in 1990 and is not a very long read, coming in at 58 pages long in my copy, which is a Puffin edition published in 2001. Despite saying that this book is 58 pages long not all of these pages contain writing and some contain only a minimal amount, as the story is accompanied by some superb sketches by Quentin Blake that lift the words off the page and bring the entire tale to life. They allow the adventure being depicted to take on its own life and give the characters minds and actions of their very own that fly right into your memory.

The story itself is about a very shy man called Mr Hoppy who lives in the flat above Mrs Silver and each day looks down from his balcony to hers and watches her pet her beloved tortoise Alfie. Mrs Silver whole-heartedly loves her little tortoise Alfie and Mr Hoppy wishes more than ever that he could be a tortoise and win Mrs Silvers affections but he is just too shy to try and do so.

There is however one thing that Mr Hoppy could do to win Mrs Silvers eternally gratitude and love that doesn't involve becoming an animal that hibernates for half f the year. Alfie, as I have said, is rather a small tortoise and Mrs Silver would love nothing more than for him to grow, as she feels he is sad being so small. Can this tiny tortoise bring Mr Hoppy and Mrs Silver together?

Like I said before the story is very simple and so can easily be understand by children as young as five. The story at the same time however is engaging enough to keep much older children and adults entertained for it's duration. Like a lot of Dahl's books this one seems to cross the children, adult literature boundary. Now I don't mean by that, that contained within this innocent story is a complex sub-plot understood only by adults or that an adult reader takes away a wonderfully guiding message but merely that the simplicity and innocence of this marvellous tale has an appeal to both a child and adult reader.

If you haven't read this book yourself as a child or are yet to read it to your own child, grandchild, niece or nephew then you really don't know what you are missing out on. Esio Trot is lovely little story that should be enjoyed and cherished by everyone.

Summary: A great story with lovely illustrations