Prefer the musical and movie. ( )

"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! Jump into the world's most loved magical car for her first adventure.

Of course it's different than the movie, although I was delighted to read that the characters of Caractactus Pott and his children were there from the beginning. Where the movie has some genuinely dark elements and characters (there is no mother and the child trapper is comically menacing), the book does not really. The bad guys are only seen at the end, and then only as brief caricatures that are easily overcome (as are most obstacles in the book). ( )

One of my favourite films, so favourite that i never bothered to read the book before.   I know, putting the cart before the horse is so unlike me.

Anyways, i've finally put things right and read the book, and guess what?   I totally enjoyed it.

Like the film, it's aimed directly for young children, i'd say around 7 or 8 years old, but it's also good for us Boomers who loved the film.

How do they compare?   Well the book only has some glimpses of the James Bond theme coming through, whereas the film, which was made well after Ian's death, has all the Bond tropes shoehorned into it somewhere and is much more the James Bond for children thing.   Example would be that in the book Caractacus is married to Mimsie, but in the film they needed to work in the Bond girl trope somehow, so they killed off Mimsie and created Truly Scrumptious.   They also made the arch villain much more Bond like with the big castle, and all that, and gave him the Bond henchman in the Kiddy Catcher.

But the book is still good and well worth getting if you have young children to give them a good reading to before you make them sit and watch the film: i'm sure they'll love it because Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is, without a doubt, the best James Bond film ever.

Enjoy. ( )

A read aloud with super appeal! ( )