Meet Charlie Bucket.
He's your average pauper, living with his parents and four grandparents in a ramshackle house not far from the
world's greatest
chocolate factory.
Despite poor living conditions (namely, ramshackle abode, one-item menu of cabbage soup with rarely bread to accomapny it, and threadbare hand-me-down clothes), he is a relatively happy kid. This changes to him being a grinning-from-ear-to-ear, bursting with excitement kid when he
finds a shiny silver coin in the snow one day.
The feeling intensifies 100-fold when he then purchases a
bar of chocolate with his lucky find, and discovers a bar of chocolate behind the wrapper. He nearly faints with delight when he buys a second bar of chocolate and finds... the last of 5 golden tickets issued by the reclusive Willy Wonka, greatest chocolatier in the world.
It was rumoured that Wonka hadclosed down his factory some
years ago, due to a great number spies stealing his
amazing recipes. Although the factory gates were closed, and Wonka was never seen again, candy was still being made from inside. It was then sent out to the candy stores of the world to be sold. So far nobody knew who Wonka had employed to run the factory. After so many years, Willy Wonka had finally decided to allow a select group of people into his factory. He placed five golden tickets behind the wrappers of five ordinary chocolate bars. These would each permit the entry of one child and a parent/gaurdian.
Charlie goes to the factory with his grandpa Joe, who after twenty years in bed finds he has strength enough in his legs to go to the factory. He sees amazing things and tastes delicious candies, and watches as the other four children get into mischief and end up disappearing throughout the factory. Eventually he is the only one left.
It is then that Willy Wonka reveals to Charlie his fiendish plan: All along he had been plotting to lure the five children in, then wait to see who was the least rotten of the lot. That child he would choose to become the heir to his factory. Charlie won.
The book ends with a trip in Willy Wonka's Great Glass Elevator as they travel to Charlie's home to tell his family the wonderful news.
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