I was DELIGHTED to read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to my daughter this week. I loved this book as a child and vividly remember hearing one of my elementary school teachers read this beloved book to the class. My daughter definitely caught the enthusiasm too. One evening we read for 2 hours straight! Neither of us wanted to put it down!

My favorite part of this book is the inventiveness. Creativity and imagination abound in the chocolate factory.

And, being a family that lives without TV, I was singing right along with the Oompa-Loompa's as Mike Teavee was escorted out...

"So please, oh please, we beg, we pray
Go throw your TV set away
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks -
Fear not, because we promise you
That in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something good to read.
And once they start - oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did."

Reading a good book together... that's just what we did! Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a hit!