The Enormous Crocodile (first published on 1 November 1978) is a British children's story, written by British author Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake. A picture book written for younger readers than Dahl's other works, the story tells of a hungry crocodile who aims to eat human children via using various, not-quite-impenetrable disguises.[1]
The story begins in Africa in a large, deep, muddy river, where the big crocodile (the title character) is telling a slightly smaller crocodile, called the "not-so-big one", that he wants to leave his dirty home behind and eat some real human children for his lunch. The small crocodile objects, because real children taste "tough and chewy and nasty and bitter" in his opinion compared to real fish, and because of what happened the very last time the large crocodile ever tried to eat real human children. The bigger crocodile leaves the big, deep, muddyriver anyway, and announces his intention to first visit Humpy-Rumpy the hippopotamus on the river bank, then Trunky the elephant in the jungle, then Muggle Wump the monkey, and finally Roly-Poly Bird in his orange tree. Humpy-Rumpy suspects he's "going to do something horrid." Grinning, the big crocodile responds: "I'm going to fill my hungry empty tummy with something yummy yummy yummy yummy!". The four jungle animals are all feeling horrified and disgusted with the big crocodile, thereby insulting him on the spot, hoping that he will fail miserably and will himself be killed permanently, after which the reptile himself briefly and unsuccessfully attacks first Muggle-Wump the Monkey in his tree (filled with nuts) and Roly Poly Bird himself in his (newly-built) nest.
First of all, the big crocodile walks over to a coconut tree forest, not far away from an African town, where he cleverly disguises himself as a small coconut tree using several fallen tree branches as well as several fallen coconuts, hoping to eat Toto and Mary, a brother and a sister who happen to live in the town itself, but he is annoyingly caught by Humpy-Rumpy the Hippopotamus from the muddy river bank, who catches the big crocodile with his big head, and sends him "tumbling and skidding over the ground".
Words spoken by the crocodile in the book, "I'm going to fill my hungry empty tummy with something yummy yummy yummy yummy!", displayed in the Dahl sculpture in Cardiff
Next, the big crocodile walks to a children's playground located outside an old school. Using only an abandoned tree branch, (referred to as "a large piece of wood"), the cheeky crocodile disguises himself as a "see-saw", hoping to eat an entire class of children who want to ride on what they think is the "new see-saw" itself, but, despite the school children's teacher telling the children themselves that it is "a rather knobbly sort of a see-saw", he is just disturbed on the spot by Muggle-Wump the Monkey, who tells the whole class of children to "run, run, run" and that the big crocodile is not really a real see-saw and that he just wants to eat them up.
Later on, the big crocodile creeps over to a busy funfair where he eventually sees a "big roundabout", operated only by a human man who he does not at all know. When nobody is nearby, the crocodile himself quickly puts himself between a brown lion and a yellow dragon (with a red tongue sticking out of its mouth) hoping to eat a young girl called Jill who wants to ride on him, but is confronted by Roly-Poly Bird from the jungle, who tells Jill and the children that the big crocodile himself is real and not wooden, hence why he came "from the river" and that he wants to eat them up.
Refusing to give up on his seemingly impossible task, the big crocodile finally goes to "the picnic place" located in a tropical woodland just outside the town which has trees and bushes all around it. When nobody is looking, however, the crocodile picks up a bunch of beautiful coloured flowers with his front legs, and then he arranges it on top of one of the tables in the area. From exactly the same table, the (now very hungry) crocodile sneakily takes away one of the place's long benches and hides the long bench itself in one of the many clumps of bushes in the area before disguising himself as a wooden four-legged bench using all four of his stiff legs, hoping to eat four children, ("two boys and two girls") who are all going out "on a picnic together", but is annoyingly discovered by Trunky the Elephant.
With a chance to save the day, Trunky the Elephant marches through the jungle into the Picnic Place. Once Trunky is standing beside the table with the bunch of coloured flowers on top of it, he crossly picks the big crocodile himself up by his tail using his trunk before telling him that he, Roly-Poly Bird, Humpy-Rumpy and Muggle-Wump have "all had quite enough of (his) clever tricks". Then, Trunky swings the big crocodile around in the air by his tail, slowly at first, then a bit faster, then a lot faster, and finally very fast, before eventually throwing him into the sky with his trunk. The dizzy enormous crocodile flies diagonally through Earth's stratosphere, and through the Universe. The crocodile zooms past the Moon, past all the other planets, and finally past the many twinkling stars. The story ends as, "with the most tremendous bang", the flying Enormous Crocodile crashes headfirst into the "hot hot Sun" in the middle of the Solar System, where he becomes "sizzled up like a sausage" right after impact, killing him "once and for all".
2023 Revisions
In February 2023, Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Books, announced they would be re-writing portions of many of Roald Dahl's children's novels, changing the language to, in the publisher's words, "ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by young readers of all ages today".[2] At least five changes were made in The Enormous Crocodile (1978), including changing the word fat to nice and changing ugly to horrid and changing boys and girls to just children.[3][4]
Style and publication date
Crocodile bench and chair sculpture overlooking Cardiff Bay depicting The Enormous Crocodile
The Enormous Crocodile is in the style of a picture book in contrast to Roald Dahl's other story books, illustrated by Quentin Blake. It was published on 1 November 1978.
Connections to other Roald Dahl Stories
Muggle-Wump the monkey also appears in The Twits in which he is accompanied by a whole family of Muggle-Wumps. A monkey which looks like Blake's illustration of exactly the same character also appears in The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me.
The Roly-Poly Bird makes a surprising appearance in The Twits and he can also be seen in Dirty Beasts.
A recipe outlining how to make your own edible Enormous Crocodile appears in Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes.
Adaptations
A musical adaptation of The Enormous Crocodile was staged at Leeds Playhouse from December 2023 to January 2024.[5][6]
Related Research Articles
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Roald Dahl was a British author of popular children's literature and short stories, a poet, screenwriter and a wartime fighter ace. His books have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide. Dahl has been called "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century".
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Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children's writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works. For his lasting contribution as a children's illustrator he won the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. From 1999 to 2001, he was the inaugural British Children's Laureate. He is a patron of the Association of Illustrators.
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James and the Giant Peach is a popular children's novel written in 1961 by British author Roald Dahl. The first edition, published by Alfred Knopf, featured illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. There have been re-illustrated versions of it over the years, done by Michael Simeon, Emma Chichester Clark, Lane Smith and Quentin Blake. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1996 which was directed by Henry Selick, and a musical in 2010.
The Magic Finger is a 1966 children's story by British author Roald Dahl. First published in the United States by Harper & Row with illustrations by William Pène du Bois, Allen & Unwin published the first U.K. edition in 1968. Later editions have been illustrated by Pat Marriott, Tony Ross, and Quentin Blake. The novel was adapted into a 1990 TV special on ITV (CITV). The author Roald Dahl narrated an unabridged recording for Harper Children Audio and Kate Winslet narrated an unabridged recording in 2013 for Penguin Audio.
The Twits is a 1980 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. It was first published by Jonathan Cape. The story features The Twits, a spiteful, idle, unkempt couple who continuously play nasty practical jokes on each other to amuse themselves, and exercise their devious wickedness on their pet monkeys.
George's Marvellous Medicine is a children's novel written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake. First published by Jonathan Cape in 1981, it features George Kranky, an eight-year-old boy who concocts his own miracle elixir to replace his tyrannical grandmother's regular prescription medicine.
The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me is a 1985 children's book written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake. The plot follows a young boy named Billy who meets a giraffe, a pelican, and a monkey, who work as window cleaners.
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The Roly-Poly Bird is a fictional character in several children's books by Roald Dahl. He appears in The Enormous Crocodile (1978), The Twits (1980), and the poetry collection Dirty Beasts (1983).
The Roald Dahl Treasury is an anthology of works of the children's author Roald Dahl. It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1997 by Jonathan Cape.
Roger Donald Blake is a Welsh actor, impressionist and entertainer. He is best known for his portrayal of Prince Philip in Spitting Image and The Big Impression and Noël Coward in television commercials, and narrated Roald Dahl's The Enormous Crocodile, The Twits, as well as the Topsy and Tim animated series from 1984 to 1989.
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