The Roald Dahl Audio Collection recap

This collection presents five complete Roald Dahl stories. Charlie Bucket finds a golden ticket, tours Willy Wonka's perilous chocolate factory, and is chosen to inherit it after the other children ignore warnings. Orphaned James escapes his cruel aunts inside a giant peach, crosses the Atlantic with enormous insects, and begins a new life in New York. Mr. Fox outwits Boggis, Bunce, and Bean by tunneling into their farms and feeding the besieged underground animals. The Enormous Crocodile's attempts to disguise himself and eat children are defeated by jungle animals, and Trunky the elephant throws him into the sun. Finally, an unnamed girl turns the hunting Gregg family into winged, bird-sized people. Threatened by armed ducks, the Greggs renounce hunting, regain human form, and destroy their guns, while the girl's magic finger finds a new target.

In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie Bucket lives in poverty beside Willy Wonka's closed and secretive factory. Wonka announces that five golden tickets will admit children for a tour. Four go to Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, and Mike Teavee, each indulged in a different obsession. Charlie finds money in the street, buys chocolate, and discovers the final ticket. He enters with Grandpa Joe and meets Wonka, the Oompa-Loompas, and the factory's extraordinary inventions. One by one, the other children ignore warnings and suffer transformations or removal: Augustus falls into the chocolate system, Violet becomes a giant blueberry, Veruca is rejected as a bad nut, and Mike is reduced by television machinery. Charlie remains. Wonka reveals that the tour was a test to find a child who can take over the factory without an adult trying to change it. He gives the factory to Charlie and carries Charlie, Grandpa Joe, and the rest of the Bucket family toward their new home in a glass elevator.

Charlie Bucket has inherited Willy Wonka's factory. In James and the Giant Peach, orphaned James Henry Trotter lives miserably with Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. A stranger gives him magical objects, which James spills beside an old peach tree. One peach grows to the size of a house, and inside it James discovers giant insects who become his friends. The peach breaks free, crushing the aunts, and rolls into the sea. James devises a way to lift it with silken lines attached to seagulls, carrying the travelers through dangers in the air and across the Atlantic. They arrive above New York City, where the peach lands on the Empire State Building and initially causes alarm. Once James explains their journey, the companions are welcomed. The peach is eaten down to its stone, which becomes James's home in Central Park. No longer isolated, he shares his story with visiting children, while his insect friends find honored roles in the city.

Charlie inherits Wonka's factory, and James reaches a safe new life in New York with his giant insect companions. In Fantastic Mr. Fox, Mr. Fox steals food from the farms of Boggis, Bunce, and Bean to feed his family. The farmers ambush him and shoot away his tail, then use shovels and mechanical diggers to attack the foxes' burrow. When the animals dig deeper, the farmers surround the hill and wait to starve them out. Mr. Fox leads his family through new tunnels that reach the farmers' storehouses. With help from other underground animals, they take chickens, geese, ducks, and cider without going above ground. Mrs. Fox prepares a feast for all the families endangered by the siege. Mr. Fox proposes that they build a permanent underground community supplied through tunnels, allowing them to remain safe. Above, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean continue waiting beside the foxhole, unaware that their quarry is eating well beneath them.

Charlie becomes Wonka's heir, James finds a New York home, and Mr. Fox defeats the farmers' siege by building an underground supply network. In The Enormous Crocodile, a hungry crocodile leaves the river intending to eat children. He boasts of secret plans and moves toward town, disguising himself as objects that might attract or conceal him near children. The other jungle animals recognize each trick and intervene: Humpy-Rumpy, Muggle-Wump, the Roly-Poly Bird, and Trunky warn the children or expose the disguise before the crocodile can strike. When the crocodile makes a final attempt in a playground, Trunky seizes him with his trunk and swings him faster and faster. The elephant releases him with such force that he flies beyond the earth and into the sun, where he is destroyed. The children and the animals are safe, and none of the crocodile's schemes succeeds.

The first four selections end with Charlie inheriting Wonka's factory, James settling in New York, Mr. Fox feeding an underground community, and the Enormous Crocodile being thrown into the sun. In The Magic Finger, an unnamed girl is furious that her neighbors, the Greggs, shoot birds for sport. Her involuntary magic affects the family: Mr. and Mrs. Gregg and their sons Philip and William shrink, grow wings, and are forced to build a nest for the night. Meanwhile, four ducks grow to human size, acquire arms, and move into the Gregg house. The ducks confront the family with the guns formerly used to hunt them. Now experiencing the fear of hunted creatures, Mr. Gregg promises that his family will stop shooting animals. The ducks accept the promise, and by the next morning the Greggs have regained their human bodies. They smash their guns and begin feeding birds instead. The girl then sees that another neighbor, Mr. Cooper, has returned from hunting. She runs toward his home with her magic finger raised, leaving his family's coming transformation implied.

The collection closes with The Magic Finger. After the hunting Gregg family is transformed into small, winged people, four ducks with humanlike arms occupy their house and aim the Greggs' own guns at them. Experiencing the terror of being hunted changes Mr. Gregg's view. He promises that the family will never shoot animals again, and the ducks restore the humans to their normal bodies before departing. Mr. Gregg destroys the guns, and the family replaces hunting with feeding and protecting birds. The unnamed girl then notices another hunting neighbor, Mr. Cooper, and points her magic finger in his direction, suggesting that another forced lesson is beginning. The earlier selections have already reached complete endings: Charlie inherits Wonka's factory, James finds a home in New York, Mr. Fox establishes an underground food supply while the farmers wait uselessly above, and the Enormous Crocodile is flung into the sun.