The View From The Foothills

The boys loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and so I
immediately went looking for the sequel, which I dimly remembered from my
childhood. On the whole I’m rather sorry I did, because it’s a lesser
book altogether. The book contains two mostly disconnected stories of
only moderate interest, a few verbal gems, and vast dollops of cynicism
with regard to the office of the President of the United States. It’s not
that I regard the President to be beyond criticism; it’s just that I don’t
really think cynicism about our society and its institutions is proper in
a book I’m reading to an eight-year-old and his little brother. My fault;
I should have re-read it myself before starting it with David and James.

That said, the Vermicious Knids are pretty cool, and I rather like the
Nurse’s song about how her charge became President:

And now that I am eighty-nine,
It’s too late to repent.
The fault was mine the little swine
Became the President.