Every Roald Dahl Children's Book, Ranked
Rank all 17 of Roald Dahl's children's books head-to-head, Matilda vs The BFG and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory vs The Witches. A classroom favorite. Your first pick is right here. No sign-up.
Size
James and the Giant Peach1961
The Enormous Crocodile1978
Tap a poster to make your pick. Crowd numbers appear after you choose.
How the community ranks them
Results appear here as people finish brackets. Each pick feeds the head-to-head numbers, so the first players decide where all 17 start.
How the Roald Dahl Books bracket works
This Roald Dahl book ranking is played, not dragged into rows. You get one matchup at a time — Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Matilda? The BFG or The Witches? — and after 15 picks the bracket has a champion, with everything else placed by how far it got. A straight list invites you to hedge. A matchup does not, and that is what makes the final 17-deep order worth screenshotting.
This bracket runs 4 rounds at the default 16-slot size (Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Final), drawn from a pool of 17 books. Everyone gets the same draw on a given day, so you can compare runs with friends; New draw gives you a genuinely different bracket rather than the same path twice. You can also play it at 8 or 17 slots for a shorter or longer run.
15 picks, 4 rounds
- Round of 168 matchups
- Quarterfinals4 matchups
- Semifinals2 matchups
- Final1 matchup
Roughly 1-2 minutes start to finish at the default size.
All 17 entrants
All 17 entrants are listed below, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG and The Witches.
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory1964
- Matilda1988
- The BFG1982
- The Witches1983
- James and the Giant Peach1961
- Fantastic Mr Fox1970
- The Twits1980
- George's Marvellous Medicine1981
- Danny, the Champion of the World1975
- Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator1972
- The Enormous Crocodile1978
- Esio Trot1990
- The Magic Finger1966
- The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me1985
- The Minpins1991
- The Vicar of Nibbleswicke1991
- The Gremlins1943
Tier list instead?
Load all 17 into the tier list maker and sort them into S through F yourself: same entrants, no matchups.
Open the tier list makerMissing something?
Build your own Roald Dahl book bracket with exactly the entrants you want, then share the link.
Open the bracket makerGetting a ranking you actually agree with
- Choose the book you would press into a friend's hands first, not the one you think you should rate higher.
- Start at 16 slots. If the result feels too obvious, replay at 17 so more of the 17 books make the field.
- If a matchup genuinely splits you, undo and replay it — a coin-flip pick in round one distorts everything below it.
Questions people ask
How many books are in the Roald Dahl Books bracket?
The pool holds 17 books. A default run uses 16 of them and takes 15 picks across 4 rounds: Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Final. Other field sizes are available too — 8, 16, 17 slots.
Which books are included?
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Twits, George's Marvellous Medicine, Danny, the Champion of the World, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, The Enormous Crocodile and Esio Trot, plus 5 more. Every entrant is listed further down this page with its artwork.
How long does the Roald Dahl Books bracket take?
About 1-2 minutes — 15 choices at the default size, or 7 if you drop to an 8-slot bracket. It works the same on a phone as on a desktop, no login is involved, and progress saves as you go.
How does this compare to a drag-and-drop tier list maker?
Both are here, and the bracket is closer to a tier list than it looks. It ends with a champion, a runner-up and then every other book grouped by the round it went out in — which is exactly a set of tiers, decided by 15 direct comparisons rather than by your first guess at a layout. What it deliberately does not do is claim a precise gap between two books that never met. If you would rather place the books into S through F rows yourself, the tier list maker loads all 17 of them at bracketranker.com/tier-list-maker.
How did everyone else rank these books?
Every completed bracket feeds the Roald Dahl Books community results page, which aggregates win rates across all plays and tracks how often each of the 17 entrants takes the title. It updates continuously, so it moves as more people play.
Can I build my own roald dahl books bracket?
Use the bracket maker: add your own books, name it, and share the link so other people play the same field. That is the route to take when this pool of 17 is missing something you would have picked, or when you want a version scoped to one era, label or franchise.