James and the Giant Peach movie night

James and the Giant peach book club as part of our book and a movie night.

James and the Giant Peach is one of those books I distinctly remember.  I read it in third grade, and my third-grade teacher devoted the entire back wall to the giant peach.  As we read books, we would fill out a pigeon, and she would staple it to the back wall.  by the end of the year, the back wall was filled with “book birds” we had read, and the peach was flying through our back wall. That made for a very memorable James and the Giant Peach book club in elementary school.

I still have all 10 of my book birds from our James and the Giant Peach wall.  I’ve actually traced the shape and used it in a much smaller version for an Easter lesson.

But when the James and the Giant Peach movie came out a few years ago I didn’t go see it.  I didn’t like the animation style, and it was just too weird for me.  Also, I knew there was a good chance I’d see it with my kids.

I was right.

(There’s a lot of Amazon links in here, and they’re all affiliate links, to be honest, the prices on the snack foods are terrible, but the book and movie prices are great)

James and the Giant Peach book club

Hi, Future Ticia 2021 here, when we read James and the Giant Peach our book club pretty much consisted of reading the book, talking about what they noticed, and then watching the movie and critiquing the differences.

So, we didn’t have much in the way of a book club, so I’m going to point you towards the people who did more.

• James and the Giant Peach unit
• James and the Giant Peach discussion questions
• James and the Giant Peach resources
• James and the Giant Peach teacher guide
• James and the Giant Peach activities

In case you’re wondering, all of those are great ways to research ideas for a book, because all of those are how people will title their posts.

James and the Giant Peach movie night snacks

Since we watched this movie over the summer, I didn’t have the kids do much with it beyond read James and the Giant Peach, and help me brainstorm snacks.  That being said, we talked about James and the Giant Peach a lot.

1. Why were his aunts SO mean?
2. How were the characters each different?  Aside from the obviousness of their different insects
3. Why were the insects in there?

It’s just a weird book.

We had a lot of snacks that were fairly simple

1. “peach juice” (orange fanta)
2. spider silk (licorice)
3. spiders (oreos and pretzel sticks)
4. gummy worms
5. grasshopper cookies
6. peach pits (whoppers)
7. rainbows (rainbow fruit roll ups, I am learning Amazon has terrible prices on snack foods like this even if it’s Prime Pantry)
8. ladybugs
9. peaches (you can’t watch James and the Giant Peach without having some peaches to eat)

I will say, after watching the movie, my first reaction to it remains the same, and my kids seem to of inherited/learned my movie tastes because they weren’t all that excited about the James and the Giant Peach movie either, I think the exact reaction was “At least it’s not Bunnicula or Ella Enchanted,” which have become the standard bad book and a movie adaptation in our home.

More 4th Grade book clubs

4th Grade has so many amazing book and a movie combos, so you can go beyond the James and a Giant Peach book club to so many more ideas:

• Pippi Longstocking book club
• Charlotte’s Web book club
• 101 Dalmations book club
• How to Train Your Dragon book club
• Because of Winn-Dixie book club

“Georgia Peach” by abbydonkrafts is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0