The Magic Finger

The Magic Finger

First British edition (Allen & Unwin, 1968)
Author	Roald Dahl
Illustrator	William Pène du Bois (first), Pat Marriott, Tony Ross, Quentin Blake
Cover artist	Pène du Bois (first), Marriott, Ross, Blake
Subject	Hunting, magic[1]
Genre	Children's picture book, Fantasy, Comedy
Publisher	Harper & Row (first), George Allen and Unwin (first UK)[2]
Publication date	1966
Publication place	United States United Kingdom
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	40
LC Class	PZ7.D1515 Mag[1]

The Magic Finger is a 1966 children's story by British author Roald Dahl.^[3][4] First published in the United States by Harper & Row with illustrations by William Pène du Bois,^[1][5] Allen & Unwin published the first U.K. edition in 1968.^[2] Later editions have been illustrated by Pat Marriott, Tony Ross, and Quentin Blake.^[5] The novel was adapted into a 1990 TV special on ITV (CITV).^[6] The author Roald Dahl narrated an unabridged recording for Harper Children Audio^[7] and Kate Winslet narrated an unabridged recording in 2013 for Penguin Audio.^[8]

The Magic Finger is narrated by an unnamed 8-year-old girl who is growing up on a remote rural farm in the English countryside, next door to the Gregg family who have a passion for hunting animals and birds. The titular "Magic Finger" is an ability she has that activates inadvertently whenever she gets angry: the finger itself shoots out a beam of electrical energy that apparently seeks out whoever has angered the girl, with unpredictable consequences. For example, when the girl's teacher shames her for misspelling the word "cat", the magic finger gives her whiskers and a bushy tail, and the girl cryptically states that she was never quite the same again.

One day, the girl sees Mr. Gregg and his two sons, Philip and William, returning home from a hunt with a deer that they have just killed, and they make fun of her when she shouts at them. In a rage, the girl puts the Magic Finger itself on the entire family; when they wake up the following morning they have shrunk to bird-size and developed "ducks' wings" in place of their arms and hands. While trying out their new wings, the Greggs fly out of their beloved house, which is promptly occupied by four human-sized ducks with human arms and human hands, and they are all soon forced to build a nest in an old tree for the night.

The following morning, the Greggs all find that, in a major reversal of their habits, three out of four of the ducks are holding the Greggs' hunting guns in their hands. Desperately, Mr and Mrs Gregg both persuade the ducks not to shoot them, but the mother duck (the only duck who never holds a gun) taunts them about their own fondness for shooting, especially since the previous day, they somehow shot all 6 of the duck's precious children. Mr Gregg tells the duck mother to give up shooting and he destroys all 3 guns with a big hammer, swearing never to hurt another duck, deer "or anything else again". The four ducks then head back toward the lake where they live, before letting the Greggs leave their tree. Then, the Greggs all find themselves returned to normal by magic.

The 8-year-old girl comes by the Greggs' farm to see that the Gregg family (now changing their surname to Egg) have fully changed their ways and are now feeding and caring for the birds. As Philip and William tell the girl their entire story, the sound of gunfire in the distance attracts the girl's attention, and she feels the Magic Finger charging up again.

• The Magic Finger title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database