The title of my book is “The Magic Finger”. The person who wrote the book is Roald Dahl, while the person who illustrated the book is Quentin Blake. The main characters are “Girl” and the Gregg family. The Gregg family has four family members; they are Mr. and Mrs. Gregg and their two sons, Phillip and William. Girl and the Gregg family are neighbours. The girl’s name was never mentioned in the story, she is just referred to as “Girl”.
The Magic Finger is about an eight year old girl who has a magic finger. Whenever she gets cross, a sort of lightning flash will come out of her finger. When the flash touches the person who makes her cross, it will turn that person into an animal. There was once, she turned the teacher into a cat when the teacher called her stupid after she misspelled the word “cat”. Girl is kind and she loves animals. The Gregg family on the other hand, likes to shoot ducks. Girl tries to persuade them to stop shooting ducks but they will not listen. She decides to teach them a lesson of how it is like being a duck that is shot at. She uses her magic finger on the Gregg family. The Greggs turn into ducks and the ducks they are shooting at grow hands, now the ducks start shooting at the Greggs instead.
My favourite character is ‘Girl’, who is the main character because she is a nice person. She has long hair and a magic finger. She loves animals. She dislikes people who are cruel to animals. I also like her because she uses her magic finger to turn the Gregg family into ducks in order to stop them from killing innocent ducks.
My least favourite character is Mr. Gregg because he shoots ducks. He is very unkind to animals. He shoots ducks in excess and hunts every animal that he sees.
This story is humorous and fun to read. The funniest part in the story is when one of the ducks, after turning into a giant duck with hands, answers the phone in the Gregg’s house. When Girl called Phillip, the duck answered “Quack” and when the Girl asked “Who is it?” the duck replied “Quack Quack”. The illustrations by Quentin Blake are also very funny. I like the scribble drawings in the story.
The part of the story I dislike is that the author never once mentions Girl’s name. I also find the story too short.
I like how the story ends. In the end, the Gregg family stops shooting ducks. Mr. Gregg smashes all three guns into tiny pieces with a huge hammer, while Mrs. Gregg places beautiful flowers upon the graves of the sixteen ducks that Mr. Gregg and the boys have shot. The Gregg family has learnt their lesson.
The message in the story is that we should be considerate; always put ourselves in someone else’s position, to understand how they feel. The story teaches me to be kind and loving to animals. If I have a magic finger, I would also use it for good cause.
Carissa Yeo | Age 9 | Kong Hwa Primary School
** Special thanks to Jackeline Carter of Academy IG Pte Ltd for making this possible.
The Magic Finger
Written by Roald Dahl Illustrated by Quentin Blake
Published by Penguin Books
ISBN: 0142413852 (ISBN13: 9780142413852)
Buy The Magic Finger on Amazon | Book Depository
Gathering Books 
Hi Carissa! So happy to have you as our Quill Junior Contributor for the month. Your piece came at the perfect time given our Roald Dahl bimonthly theme. I also borrowed this book from the library, but I have not had the chance to read it yet. After reading your review, I feel that it might be right up my interest. Thanks for being so thorough. 🙂 Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts about books. 😉
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Great review. I wouldn’t like Mr. Gregg either.
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Good job Carissa!
I am proud of you!
Regards, Ms Jackeline
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good review carissa ! ur review made my interest more in reading dahl’s book.
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He is actually a read good author. I have the whole collection of his books and i love them all. I have been reading then non – stop. My favorite is probably this one because it makes you want to read more and more and it is really interesting. I love how Roald Dahl sets out his books but i wish the girl had a name.
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I love this book it’s great and imaginative
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i love it too becuse i like magic and The message in the story is that we should be considerate; always put ourselves in someone else’s position, to understand how they feel. The story teaches me to be kind and loving to animals. If I have a magic finger, I would also use it for good cause.
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It is a great book. I also had to write a review on the book for my homework as i am in the 5th grade.Great job Carissa!!!!
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It was a lovely book……excellent work carissa
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EXcellent review, Carissa! 😀
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Excellent book review!
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