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The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me

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As a member of the Ladderless Window-Cleaning Company, young Billy begins to clean the hundreds of windows at the Duke's home, yet while working for the wealthy man, Billy discovers that he may be able to recieve more than just a paycheck at the end of this assignment. Reprint.

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Roald Dahl

1,396 books25.3k followers
Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter of Norwegian descent, who rose to prominence in the 1940's with works for both children and adults, and became one of the world's bestselling authors.

Dahl's first published work, inspired by a meeting with C. S. Forester, was Shot Down Over Libya. Today the story is published as A Piece of Cake. The story, about his wartime adventures, was bought by the Saturday Evening Post for $900, and propelled him into a career as a writer. Its title was inspired by a highly inaccurate and sensationalized article about the crash that blinded him, which claimed he had been shot down instead of simply having to land because of low fuel.

His first children's book was The Gremlins, about mischievous little creatures that were part of RAF folklore. The book was commissioned by Walt Disney for a film that was never made, and published in 1943. Dahl went on to create some of the best-loved children's stories of the 20th century, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda and James and the Giant Peach.

He also had a successful parallel career as the writer of macabre adult short stories, usually with a dark sense of humour and a surprise ending. Many were originally written for American magazines such as Ladies Home Journal, Harper's, Playboy and The New Yorker, then subsequently collected by Dahl into anthologies, gaining world-wide acclaim. Dahl wrote more than 60 short stories and they have appeared in numerous collections, some only being published in book form after his death. His stories also brought him three Edgar Awards: in 1954, for the collection Someone Like You; in 1959, for the story "The Landlady"; and in 1980, for the episode of Tales of the Unexpected based on "Skin".

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5 stars
9,126 (29%)
4 stars
10,465 (33%)
3 stars
9,388 (30%)
2 stars
1,905 (6%)
1 star
373 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,786 reviews
Profile Image for [ J o ].
1,962 reviews510 followers
February 11, 2019
A short story about a Giraffe, Pelican and Monkey who open up a ladderless window cleaning company, who become friendly with a small boy called Billy. It's full of all the Dahlian humour and whimsy and nonsense, but like always it has a nice serious edge to it.

Very charming, though definitely not his best and quite unsubstantial in reality. In general, it's written as well as all his others but I think the emphasis on the whimsy really helped this particular story, especially since it was more along the lines of almost-believable whimsy. Just a nice, delightful quick read for any child or adult, and I'm sure any competent child could definitely handle it alone.


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Profile Image for Emily B.
476 reviews497 followers
August 12, 2020
I have to say this isn’t my favourite Roald Dahl story. Perhaps because it’s pretty short so it’s hard to really get into a fall in love with the character. However it’s worth reading, specially with children.
Profile Image for Paula Mota.
1,280 reviews427 followers
March 21, 2023
3,5*
#Dewithon 2023

Considero-me uma pessoa bem formada, mas no melhor pano cai a nódoa, e o meu podre é um duvidoso sentido de humor. Rio-me de coisas parvas e talvez até polémicas. #Rick Gervais #Monty Python. Por outro lado, penso muitas vezes: de que riem as pessoas politicamente correctas?
Vem isto a propósito da descabida ideia de a editora britânica Puffin Books “rescrever” os clássicos de Roald Dahl para se adaptarem às “sensibilidades actuais”. Eu nem sou de escrever palavras entre aspas, mas o conceito é tão abominável, que não vejo alternativa. Depois da onda de protestos, incluindo de pessoas que sabem o que é ser censurado, como Salman Rushdie, a Penguin Random House voltou atrás nesta ridícula decisão de retirar os originais de circulação e, assim, vai criar versões alternativas para crianças e jovens que prefiram ver “enorme” em vez de “gordo”, que se ofendam com o adjectivo “preto” aplicado a tratores e achem que a profissão de caixa de supermercado para uma mulher é inadmissível e deverá ser substituída, por exemplo, por cientista. Se se estão a rir, high five! São cá dos meus. Se não forem, paciência. Não desistam já de mim.
Por mais que ache que devemos ter tento na língua e respeitar os outros que são diferentes de nós, estes livros foram escritos há décadas por um autor que usava o humor negro provavelmente por superar a tristeza da sua vida. Dahl ficou órfão de pai aos 3 anos, combateu na Segunda Guerra Mundial, viu um dos seus filhos morrer e dois outros a ficarem inválidos. Se não tinha também os seus podres? Consta que sim. Mas se têm respeito por alguns, tenham-no por todos, senão, ganhem juízo.
O livro aqui em questão, “A Girafa, o Pelicano e Eu” é, por seu lado, daqueles totalmente inócuos, acho que, nunca se sabe o que estarei a tresler. O pequeno Billy trava amizade com um trio de lavadores de janelas formado por uma girafa, um pelicano e um macaco, que vive numa antiga loja de doces. Não está entre os melhores deste autor galês, mas é uma história simpática com algumas mostras da inventividade que o caracteriza.

E os estica-elásticos, que faziam com que todos os cabelos da cabeça ficassem em pé, logo que metias um na boca... e havia gulochocos e gomabitas e caramelos azulinos e zumpinos doces e estica-línguas, e além de tudo isto, havia muitas coisas esplêndidas da grande fábrica Wonka, como por exemplo as famosas Pastilhas Arco-Íris Willy Wonka – quando as chupas, cospes em sete cores diferentes. E o Cola-Maxilares para pais faladores. Ah, apanhada!
Profile Image for Miss Ravi.
Author 1 book1,121 followers
February 14, 2019
کتاب را برای یک پسر بچه هفت ساله خواندم. صدای‌ام را موقع گفتن دیالوگ هر کدام از شخصیت‌ها عوض می‌کردم اما بیش‌تر از قصه، مجذوب حس حیرتی شدم که در چهره‌ی پسرک آشکار شده بود. میل شدید به شنیدن و پیش‌رفتن قصه، اشتیاقی که او را از تبلتش جدا کرده بود و آن‌چنان رام شده بود که سرش را تکه‌ داده بود به بازوی‌ام و تصاویر کتاب را نگاه می‌کرد و شگفت‌زده می‌شد هر لحظه. فکر کردم همه‌ی ما اینجوری بودیم آن اوایل و هنوز هم گاهی، فقط گاهی این شکلی می‌شویم. به ندرت، اگر قصه‌ای بتواند به عمیق‌ترین نقطه روح‌مان متصل شود.
Profile Image for Matt.
4,192 reviews13k followers
June 23, 2020
Another great re-read!

Bring on more Dahl! I feel as though I can sprint through these books (which, I admit, are geared for children) and share them with the world. After a sweets shop goes on the selling block, our narrator, Billy, watches with amazement when a new company mysterious appears, as if overnight. Billy goes to check things out, where he comes across a giraffe sticking its head out of the top-floor window. Thereafter, a pelican emerges to share the story of their window cleaning business, which is rounded out by a highly energetic monkey. Its name? The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me (as if there were any doubt!). Through a rhyming, sing-song narrative, Billy learns a little more about this ragtag group of three and how they hope to impress the townsfolk with all their washing abilities. After a letter arrives from the Duke of Hampshire, Billy and his three new friends begin the journey to offer their window washing services. Arriving at this spacious parcel of land, all four find a way to assist the Duke around his estate before discovering a jewel heist taking place within the manor house. Working together, The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me attempt to intercept the thief. Their success could garner more than just a return of the countless number of diamonds the Duchess is missing! Dahl pushes the silliness to the brink here, but the rhyming and sing-song nature keep the story light and full of entertaining antics. Wonderfully crafted and a magical way to end a day with this pre-bedtime story.

Dahl masters yet another story here by finding new characters and new angles to approach. With another child protagonist (as attentive readers will see, many Dahl tales are narrated by children), the story progresses. The precocious narrator goes off to explore the world, alone. I noticed that there are rarely any parental figures found in Dahl's children's books, which was mentioned in a recent biography I read of the author. Billy is free to frolic and find his way, dashing off to an estate with three random animals, where they eventually clash with an armed robber. How interesting for a children's book to remove the 'adult flavour', at least parents, from the narrative and give complete control to a child seemingly the same age as the target audience. The story flows well and the characters work well together to forge a strong story and decent collection of morals and lessons that are threaded throughout.

Kudos, Mr. Dahl for all you have given us. You departed the world much too soon, but left a literary footprint that no one else will ever fill.

Like/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
Profile Image for ☾❀Miriam✩ ⋆。˚.
909 reviews472 followers
June 8, 2020


A short, cute story about a kind boy and a group of animals with magical abilities. One of the rare books by Roald Dahl which are actually fun and cute instead of naughty and crazy. His absurd storytelling still shines though, and Wonka's factory makes an unexpected apparition. Cute! :)
Profile Image for Amina (ⴰⵎⵉⵏⴰ).
1,376 reviews288 followers
September 2, 2016
Friendship is an amazing thing to share! The duke was a bit crazy, but the great kind of crazy :D
And the closing poem, or song earned the book its forth star!

"We have tears in our eyes
As we wave our good byes
We so love being with you, we three
So do please now and then
Come and see us again
The giraffe and the pelly and me

All you do is to look
At a page in this book
Because that's where we always will be
No book never ends
When it's full of your friends
The giraffe and the pelly and me"
Profile Image for Miranda Reads.
1,589 reviews163k followers
December 10, 2020
Quite a cute story.

Billy discovers that someone bought the old candy store...and that someone happens to be a giraffe, a pelican and a monkey.

They've opened a window cleaning company, using the monkey's hands to wash, the pelican's beak as a bucket and the giraffe as a ladder. Quite a clever set up!

As you can imagine, this story is full of whimsy and delightful coincidences as they meet the Duke, catch a robber and find a home.

Audiobook Comments
Read by Hugh Laurie - and he rocked this audio. It was so much fun to listen to Laurie read such a childish story!

YouTube | Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Snapchat @miranda_reads
Profile Image for emma.
2,246 reviews74.1k followers
May 5, 2022
they can't all be hits.

even if you're roald dahl and your mind is capable of coming up with things like "boy in magic chocolate factory gets to live there forever" and "girl who reads a lot is also magic because of that."

even at that level of content creation, you're going to come up with giraffes and pellys sometimes.

part of a series i'm doing in which i review books i read a long time ago
Profile Image for Amira Mahmoud.
618 reviews8,709 followers
July 21, 2017
قصص الأطفال التي كنت أتمنى لو أنني قرأتها صغيرة لأتذوقها حقًا، من الصعوبة بمكان أن تبدأ القراءة في عُمر ما بدون أن تتحسّر على تلك الأيام والسنوات التي قضيتها قبل أن تعرف تلك اللذة.

ربما ما سيشكل عوضًا بالنسبة ليّ هو أنني يومًا ما وإذا رُزقت بأطفال سألقي أمامهم بكل تلك القصص البريئة في كل مكان تقع عليه أعينهم.

تمّت
Profile Image for Myricae ♡.
122 reviews26 followers
August 25, 2020
Una storiella molto corta e senza grandi pretese, sicuramente adatta ai più piccini.

In questo piccolo libro la fantasia e l’amicizia si mescolano in maniera perfetta, dando vita a una strampalata impresa di pulizie, capace di fare davvero miracoli.

Forse questo non è la storia migliore di Roald Dahl, questo è vero, ma il suo stile è inconfondibile ✨
Profile Image for MJ Nicholls.
2,135 reviews4,536 followers
September 25, 2012
Sent to Andrea Messent at Darren and Associates:

Dear Darren & Associates,

It is with some regret that I sit down to write this correspondence. I understand your reluctance to read voluminous missives so I will keep this missive as unchunky as my e-pen allows.

On Sep 4th 2010 I sent to your agency, via recorded delivery, my novel When Bees Attack. I sent this following a verbal agreement between myself and your agent Cariller Cray when I met her at a catered affair for Bernard Share’s eightieth birthday. We had a thoroughly encouraging conversation about the passion for knowledge common to fellows in the academic arena—the “epistemology of the heart,” to quote my own phrase. At the climax of this discussion I mentioned in passing my sexually provocative novel When Bees Attack about a retired Oxford professor who opens a bee sanctuary on the Norfolk coast. Ms Cray was deeply impressed at the breadth of my apian knowledge and offered to read my manuscript with a view to representation by your agency.

I received no response for six months save for a Tower Bridge postcard sent by Cariller with “we cannot use” scribbled in (what appeared to be) child’s crayon. Upon a closer inspection with my nose, I did indeed ascertain this message to have been written in crayon. I sent a polite enquiry letter a week later, asking for a more formal response to my manuscript. The following week I received my returned manuscript, each page covered in crayon marks, with large blood-red scrawlings of ‘HA HA HA’ in the margins. I sent yet another polite enquiry. A week later I received a single page of foolscap with the same scrawlings—‘HA HA HA’—across the page. This is not professional conduct. I am a patient man and I do not appreciate being treated in such a bizarre manner.

All I seek is confirmation that my novel, When Bees Attack, has been read by your agency, and whether representation is possible on the strength of the material submitted.

Yours truly,

Terence Mason

*

Genuine Reply:

Dear Terence,

I’m think you may have got our Agency confused as there is no Darren or Cariller Cray working here!

Best wishes,

Andrea
Profile Image for Trish.
2,217 reviews3,691 followers
January 1, 2019
I like to start the year with some fluffy books where nothing can go wrong. Roald Dahl created such "safe spaces" for us and despite some suspenseful moments almost all of them have, we always get a happy ending.

In this book, we meeting the following characters:

Billy lives in a street near an abandoned building. The building used to house an old-fashioned sweets shop but is now converted into the home of the titular giraffe, pelican and monkey who open a window cleaning business.
Soon afterwards, they meet the Duke who has been looking for good window cleaners for 40 years so he is delighted when meeting this merry and slightly magical band.

The story tells of easy friendships, adventure and finding something you're really good at even if it might not be what other people picture you doing - and doing it with gusto.
Maybe not as good as my favourites but nevertheless a fun little story, this time full of little rhymes and songs that were delightful.

Profile Image for Sajjad Jokar.
42 reviews4 followers
February 3, 2020
از بزرگ‌ترین افتخارات زندگی‌م اینه که با کتاب‌های رولد دال بزرگ شدم...
من و زرافه و پلی هم برای همیشه جزو محبوبترین کتاب‌های من باقی می‌مونه💙
Profile Image for Keith Bruton.
Author 2 books101 followers
April 27, 2023
Brilliant yet again by Dahl. You can read all of his children's books at all ages. They are so much fun and original. And those illustrations by Quentin Blake fabulous!

4.2/5
Profile Image for Rue.
276 reviews243 followers
Shelved as 'teenage-books'
January 25, 2020
belle
I liked the subtle plot twists in the end. I had vague memory of my mom reading this to me, but i wasn't paying attention to the story back then. It all came together after this one scene where the pelican explains about his beak sliding in his head. Yeah, that sort of gave it away. This time I read it on my own and it surprisingly wasn't boring at all. ( Boo! At the 5 year old me who wasn't invested in the story). All in all it did a great job at grabbing my interest now as an adult.
Profile Image for Sam.
555 reviews86 followers
May 21, 2015
I really liked this story! The friendships are great and the duke is a weird eccentric old guy, which I love! Eccentric old people are the best!
I also loved the closing poem:

We have tears in our eyes,
As we wave our goodbyes,
We so loved being with you, we three.
So do please now and then
Come and see us again,
The giraffe and the Pelly and me.

All you do is to look
At a page in this book
Because that's where we always will be.
No book ever ends
When it's full of your friends
The giraffe and the Pelly and me.
Profile Image for Sara.
1,311 reviews407 followers
November 24, 2021
I have a bit of a soft spot for The Giraffe, The Pelly and Me because I vividly remember reading it as a child. I had the large picture book version and I read it all the time.

It's a very simple story, about a boy and his best friends who just happen to be a giraffe, a pelican and a monkey who run a window cleaning business. There's also a small nod to Willy Wonka. It was a good time.
Profile Image for Ahmed Aziz.
306 reviews56 followers
July 8, 2023
জিরাফ, পেলিক্যান পাখি আর বানরের মই ছাড়া জানালা পরিষ্কার করার দল; নিজের একটা মিষ্টির দোকান দেয়ার স্বপ্ন দেখা ছেলে আর ৬৭৭ জানালাওয়ালা প্রাসাদের মালিক বিশাল ধনী ডিউক সব মিলিয়ে চমৎকার একটা কাহিনি। তবে গল্পটা জমে ওঠার আগেই খুব তাড়াতাড়ি শেষ হয়ে গেল। ব্লেকের ইলাস্ট্রেশন যথারীতি একটা দুর্দান্ত পাওনা।
Profile Image for Mariah Roze.
1,056 reviews1,058 followers
February 7, 2017
This was an extremely cute book. I read this book as an adult, for me, by me, with no one else. As an adult I forget how fun it is to read children's chapter books. It brings back memories of when I was in elementary school. Roald Dahl was my favorite author and Matilda was my favorite book of all time in elementary school. My new goal is read every book by him!

I suggest this book to anyone that wants a quick, fun read :)
Profile Image for Pedro Fernández.
Author 15 books773 followers
February 20, 2022
Un libro breve, pero (como sucede con Roald Dahl) divertido para un público tanto infantil como adulto. Es uno de esos textos en los que compruebo que el autor es una fuerza creativa increíble. Definitivamente es un gran libro.
Profile Image for Tanja.
341 reviews21 followers
January 27, 2021
Cute and sweet story aimed at very young children. It would make a great bedtime story.
Profile Image for Fatemeh.
127 reviews20 followers
November 17, 2021
دوست دارم شعرهاشو انگلیسی ببینم چجوریه. :))
کلمات رولد دال خیلی بدیع و کیوت‌ه. :))
Profile Image for Rebecca Crunden.
Author 26 books658 followers
Shelved as 'childrens-books'
September 25, 2021
❧ audiobook review

This is one Roald Dahl book I'd actually never heard of! I'm surprised, because it was written in 1985, but somehow it slipped past me until today. I didn't love it as much as Matilda, The Witches and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but it's very cute in its own right! The audio book is narrated by Hugh Laurie, which I thoroughly recommend. He sings!



Also, the list of sweets at the end is an absolute delight! You can tell Dahl loves sweets, haha. Apparently he published a cookbook as well? What rock have I been living under? I really want to try some of his recipes now. I mean, the man who gave us The Chocolate Factory can only create epic dessert, surely? :D

Anyways, super cute book, definitely recommend.
13 reviews10 followers
June 11, 2018
This is a short book where Billy finds a ladderless window cleaning shop that has a giraffe, a pelican, and a monkey who clean your windows.
Profile Image for Joel.
565 reviews1,850 followers
August 6, 2018
I'd never heard of this one before I found it in a stoop giveaway. Nice readaloud with lots of illustrations in my edition.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,786 reviews

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