Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car by Ian Fleming.
Title: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car.
Author: Ian Fleming.
Genre: Fiction, literature, children's book, YA, adventure, fantasy, crime.
Country: U.K.
Language: English.
Publication Date: October 22, 1964.
Summary: "Crackpot" is what everybody calls the Pott family. So when they go to buy a new car and come back with a wreck, nobody is surprised. Except for the Potts themselves. First, the car has a name. And she tells them what it is. Then they find out that she can fly. And swim! Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a car on a mission to stop a criminal gang in its tracks - and she is taking the Potts with her!
My rating: 7.5/10.
My review: Being a huge fan of James Bond, I followed the idea I follow with Conan Doyle - having started with adoring the Sherlock Holmes books, I found the rest of his stories similar in the vein of fun adventures and quality. I did not find it so with Fleming - children's books are certainly not his forté.
♥ “What do you mean?” asked Jemima excitedly. “Is it a she?”
“Well,” said Commander Pott, “that’s how I’ve come to call her. It’s funny, but all bits of machinery that people love are made into females. All ships are ‘she’. Racing drivers call their cars ‘she’. Same thing with aeroplanes. Don’t know about rockets or sputniks - somehow they don’t seem very feminine to me - but I bet the rocketeers and sputnicators, or whatever they call the sputnik experts, I bet they call their space ships and things ‘she’. Odd, isn’t it? I used to serve in a battleship. Gigantic great ship stuffed with guns and radar and so on. Called the George V. But we called her ‘she’.”
♥ “That’s no way to treat adventures. Never say ‘no’ to adventures. Always say ‘yes’, otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life.”
♥ Now, if there is one thing the twins, and most other children of their age, hate, it is being talked to in baby language. Certainly as far as Jeremy was concerned, he would prefer Joe to be monstrous rather than niminy-piminy. At least you know where you are with grown-ups who behave like grown-ups, but no child likes a grown-up to talk like a baby.