This zippy tale is enjoyable enough, but it doesn't live up to the promise of Roald Dahl's first tale of Charlie Bucket's adventures with Willy Wonka. The main problem is that the story just isn't as timeless as the first. Surely adults will recognize the sly satire of the American space program and the Cold War of the early seventies, but children probably won't.

What is timeless, though, is Dahl's irreverent wit, and his irrepressible imagination. Children will be charmed when Mr. Wonka uses bad nonsense poetry to convince astronauts Shuckworth, Shanks, and Showler, and the gullible authorities back on Earth, that he is an alien invader. And readers will also be thrilled by the real aliens, the inventively named Vermicious Knids, who are horrifyingly stretchy egg-shaped creatures with disgusting "greenish-brown skin of a shiny, wettish appearance."

If your children haven't come across Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yet, make sure they read it first. And if they delight in Dahl's brand of zany humor, there are plenty more popular books by Dahl to choose from, including James and the Giant Peach. For more funny fantasy, try Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.

From the Book:
"We must go higher!" said Mr. Wonka. "We must go tremendously high! Hold onto your stomachs!" He pressed a brown button. The Elevator shuddered, and then with a fearful whooshing sound it shot vertically upward like a rocket. Everybody clutched hold of everybody else and as the great machine gathered speed, the rushing whooshing sound of the wind outside grew louder and louder and shriller and shriller until it became a piercing shriek and you had to yell to make yourself heard.