Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator

I m sure most of us have seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by now. While I won t expound much on the book, I still recommend it over the movie. Why? The movie is wonderful for eye candy and candy in general, but the wonderful wit of the characters, especially Willy Wonka, is too easily missed in the glare of colours. [return][return]In a nutshell, boy (Charlie Bucket) from very poor family finds one of the five golden tickets that entitle the holder entry and a tour of Willy Wonka s Chocolate Factory. Wonka had a secret agenda for this sudden generosity. Charlie and four other children unwittingly went through trials and temptation. Only good-hearted Charlie passes his test and becomes Wonka s heir.[return][return]Wonka s personal history is never revealed in the book, and their next adventure begins immediately after they collect the Bucket family from their little wooden house at the end of Chocolate Factory.[return][return]Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator takes place after the Elevator leaves the Bucket residence and rockets back into the sky. As Wonka s eccentricities go, the Elevator must achieve a certain height so that it will punch a new entry hole in the roof of the Factory when they descend. Everyone else in the Elevator couldn t see the logic in that either.[return][return]Things go wrong and they end up in space. [return][return]At around the same time, Space Hotel “USA” is floating in space ready to take on its first batch of hotel crew. The Transport Capsule carrying them spots the Glass Elevator, also heading for the hotel. Mistakening them for terrorists, they notify Ground Control. Chaos ensues. The US President, a hapless chap by the name of Lanceleot R Gilligrass, gets involved. [return][return]Unknown to both Transport Capsule and Glass Elevator, the Hotel has already been taken over by a host of aliens called Knids. I won't tell you everything that happened but the Elevator crew does make it back to the Factory intact, and immediately falls into another adventure... all because of the Wonka-Vite.[return][return]The full adventures of Charlie and Willy Wonka continues in another book... which I do not have at this time.[return]return

Look. It's a great deal of fun and Willy Wonka is hilarious, but a big whack of nothing happens in this book. They go up into space, do one thing, then come back down and proceed to first sincerely screw up and then, with complicated science fiction frippery, undo the screw up, the end.

They return to essentially where they start and I'm not entirely sure anyone learns a damn thing from any of it?

My kid loved it though, so here we are.