Who is Roald Dahl?

I love Roald Dahl. I mean, who hasn't watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory more than once! Not to mention Matilda, one of my childhood favorites! (I still jokingly threaten to put kids in The Chokey, although most of them are too young to understand the reference.) And what about James and the Giant Peach? All of these movies are based on books written by the wonderful, whimsical Roald Dahl.

Roald Dahl was born on September 13, 1916 in the United Kingdom. Roald was named after a famous Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, as his family was of Norwegian descent. Roald moved around quite a bit as a child attending a number of different schools including Llandaff Cathedral School. You can read about his childhood adventures in his book Boy. When Roald grew up, he worked for the Shell Oil company and joined the Royal Air Force during World War II. Roald began writing in the 1940s, but it wasn't until the 1960s when Roald published James and the Giant Peach, that he began to be noticed as a children's author. Roald Dahl's repertoire of children's books includes: James and the Giant Peach (1961), The Magic Finger (1962), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), The Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970), Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972), Danny Champion of the World (1975), The Enormous Crocodile (1978), The Twits (1980), George's Marvelous Medicine (1981), and many more. Roald Dahl passed away in 1990.

This year my second and third grade students enjoyed a reading of The Twits. This book tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Twit. As you can tell from their last name, the Twits are terribly stupid, mean, and foolish people. The story begins by describing how rotten and foul this couple is. From Mr. Twit's beard filled with sardines and moldy corn flakes, to Mrs. Twit's unbelievably ugliness, the students were absolutely disgusted. The story then moves into these two disgusting people doing disgusting things to one another. Mr. Twit puts a frog in Mrs. Twit's bed. Mrs. Twit puts worms in Mr. Twit's spaghetti. The children were thoroughly disgusted and laughed hysterically at these antics. The story wraps up by telling how the Twits' monkeys outwitted them with the help of some birds. This book was so much fun to read aloud and perfect for this grade level. I know my students are anxious to reread it.

Our school also puts on a "Read and Run Club." Ironically, this group also chose to read a Roald Dahl book. The book that they chose to read was The BFG. This is another hilarious story. It is the story of the little girl Sophie and the Big Friendly Giant (BFG) that steals her away from the orphanage. In this story, Sophie learns all about giants and experiences some of their disgusting habits. These habits include the BFG eating snozzcumbers that look and taste disgusting, and drinking frobscottle which is like soda except that it's bubbles float downward causing farts instead of burps. What third through fifth grade student wouldn't find that funny?

If you are ever looking for a funny and imaginative story, be sure to find a Roald Dahl book.