#161 in Children’s books
The Magic Fingers
- 64
- Pages
- about 1 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Magic Finger” takes aim at hunting for sport in a Roald Dahl story short enough to read in one sitting. Some readers find it dark enough to pass for horror. It leaves children with a plain question: do people who kill animals for fun understand what they are doing?
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
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.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.3 across 106 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 42% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Children’s books average of 7.9. That is how 7.7 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.1 | 32 | 30% |
| Hardcover | 7.0 | 74 | 70% |
Frequently asked
What age is The Magic Fingers for?
The Magic Fingers sits on the Children shelf in the sources we use, which by convention means roughly ages 5–10. This is a guide from the book’s category, not a publisher’s age rating. It has 64 pages — shorter than 83% of the ranked books in Children’s books.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Children’s books — with scores between 7.6 and 7.8, closest to this book.
