Book info

• Title The Magic Finger
• Author Roald Dahl
• Year 1966
• Genre Childrens

Every Saturday morning the Greg family goes off to shoot animals and birds. But the girl who lives next door hates hunting. Now it's made her so angry she's PUT THE MAGIC FINGER ON THEM ALL. And very strange things have begun to happen...

Thoughts

A super short story from Roald Dahl, somehow I know of this one but I don’t know if I’ve ever actually read it before. I was aware of the concept of the Magic Finger, but had no idea of the story that unfolds around it.

In short, a girl takes revenge on a family that goes hunting and they learn their lesson the hard way. It takes quite the moral stance that I wasn’t necessarily expecting and whilst I totally agree, I did think the moment where the birds were pointing the guns at the humans was really quite shocking, harrowing even, especially in a kids book.

But in the end I was just disappointed how short the book was. What are these powers, where did they come from, how did the girl discover she had them, what other incidents have happened before, why does no one else seem to notice? I could have done with more back story, like Matilda, but maybe that’s just my curious brain.

On the other hand, it leaves space for kids (and me) to fill in the blanks themselves and flights of imagination are always encouraged.

Rating: 3 / 5