Review: Roald Dahl's Heroes and Villains

Enjoy four fabulous full-colour stories featuring some of Roald Dahl's most magnificent heroes and monstrous villains: The Enormous Crocodile, The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me, The Twits, George's Marvellous Medicine.

In the good corner find inventive George who stands up to his grizzly, grumpy grandma by mixing a potion unlike any other. And meet Mr Muggle-Wump and his family, whose bravery and quick-thinking lead to extraordinary events.

In the bad corner Mr and Mrs Twit are the most terrible twosome you could ever have the misfortune to meet. And beware the crafty, child-guzzling crocodile...

I have celebrated Roald Dahl Day in a number of ways over the past few years, but if memory serves me correctly I don't think I have ever reviewed a Roald Dahl book on this blog (shame on me). I guess part of me feels that they are such classics that they are beyond reviewing - is there anyone reading this blog who hasn't read a handful of his books? As a child Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was definitely my favourite, but as an adult it was long ago usurped by The BFG. In the past six months my wife and I have been to see Matilda The Musical (absolutely, completely, totally amazing) and the new musical production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (not quite as good but still a very magical production, especially the Ooompa Loompas), and so Roald Dahl's stories are still playing a big part in my reading life.

With Roald Dahl Day looming I asked the lovely people at Random House if I could possibly have a review copy of a Roald Dahl book they have recently published, and when it arrived I dropped everything to read it, even though I have read the stories within on numerous occasions. I think I have a couple of other Roald Dahl anthologies in my collection, but this has to be the most beautiful of them all. It also contains four complete stories, whereas one of the ones I own is just a compilation of extracts from a huge number of his books. Much as I find most of these extracts funny and enchanting, they really do lose some of their magic when taken out of the context of their original story. Not so in Roald Dahl's Heroes and Villains.

Heroes and Villains contains two very well known stories (The Twits and George's Marvellous Medicine), both of which I have read countless times, and two slightly less well known stories (The Enormous Crocodile and The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me), the latter of which I don't think I have read since I was a child. As happens whenever I read Dahl, I was utterly entranced for the whole book, loving stories that I will never get tired of reading. Dahl does villains very well, without ever making them pantomime-esque, and I think that this is because the root of their villainy is unkindness. Not lust for power, or global domination, just simple unkindess, a trait that every child can understand and dislike, allowing them to rejoice when that villain gets their comeuppance. One of my favourite Roald Dahl quotes (not from one of his books) is: "I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I'll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else." For me, this sums up exactly how he created such nasty villains, and also what makes his heroes so endearing to chidlren and adults the world over.

There's no point me waxing lyrical about the stories themselves, as if you aren't a fan already nothing I can say is likely to change your mind (and anyway, Laura Dockrill did that so much better in her guest post for me this morning), but I really should say a little more about this volume. As ever, the words are accompanied by Quentin Blake's wonderful illustrations, but the large format of this book and the high quality paper that has been used for the pages really do the images and their vivid colours justice. This volume would make a perfect present for a child who has yet to discover the magic of Dahl, or who has only had his stories read to them and is now ready to read them independently. Equally, it would make just as good a gift for an adult, especially one who takes life too seriously and needs a little Dahl magic back in their life.

This beautiful hardcover edition of Roald Dahl's Heroes and Villains was published on 5th September and my thanks go to the lovely people at Random House for sending me a copy to read. I'm now off to read The BFG. Again.

Happy Roald Dahl Day - Guest Post by Laura Dockrill

As a teacher I obviously don't have favourite students (because that would be very bad indeed). I hope that rule doesn't apply to bloggers because if it does then I'm guilty as hell. I've met a good few authors since I started blogging, and I have to confess that I do indeed have a favourite, and that is the gloriumptious Laura Dockrill. If you have not yet been to one of Laura's events then you are a frothbungling human bean - Laura has visited my school twice in the last year and every time she has cast her magic spell over the audience and had them in the palm of her hand (she has also twice publicly stitched me up in front of the audience, but I've forgiven her for that). Seriously though, if Laura is appearing in a town near you get your backside along, take your kids, and their friends, and their friends' parents and their friends' parents' friends and their.... you will not regret it, I promise.

Knowing that Laura has a special place in her heart for the amazing Roald Dahl I asked her if she would be interested in writing a short piece for The Book Zone to help me commemorate Roald Dahl Day today. And naturally, Laura being the star that she is, she said yes, this despite her being busy writing, eventing and blogging for The Book Trust as their online writer in residence.

Over to Laura:

I speak about Roald Dahl everyday. I like to think he looks down on me from the clouds or wherever he resides these days and thinks, ‘ah, bless’ but he probably doesn’t. He is probably thinking, ‘Oh, honey, girlfriend, give it a bloody rest and shut up.’ Because I do sometimes need to shut up about it. But I cant.

I am a superfan.

Roald Dahl taught me to like books. Just like how David Bowie and The Beatles and The Spice Girls ALL taught me how to like music. You need that figure to guide you, to hold your hand, to nurture you and teach you and say ‘I think you’ll enjoy this.’ And you trust them. When I used to read Roald Dahl’s work I used to be fully transported to bliss. My brain would work like clockwork, cranking and moving and churning and creating and imagining the vision of every line of words I was reading. I never felt insulted, or patronized, or babied or challenged. I felt exactly right and natural, as if Dahl and I were working together, cooking a really excellent story up at the same time and pace. Yet at the same time, I also felt somehow compelled, exhilarated, enchanted and charged, waiting for the next unexpected route or diversion, ready for him to switch on the next unlikely candidate. That’s what I liked. Dahl wasn’t a newsreader writer, he wasn’t fair or just. He never stood back and let the horror unfold, he indulged in it.

Now. I read Dahl’s work and I am sick with jealousy. Sometimes I can trick my brain, because the stories are so captivating, and let myself be lulled by the wonder. But I’ll soon snap out of it and get sick again and have to give myself a small cuddle and think, one day. One day. You might manage to scratch the surface on this. One day. But today is still a day and not the one I’m after and I have no nails to scratch with… just yet. Besides, I quite like just being a superfan. Watching from afar, because without idols, there is nothing to dream for. And there is nothing worse than that.

~~~

Jumpsquiffling thanks to Laura for taking time out to write that for us. If you have not yet read her debut book for children, Darcy Burdock, then you need to go out and buy it right now. It's one of my favourite books of 2013 and I can't wait to read the sequel. although I'm going to have to as it isn't out until next year.

Review: Fantastic Mr Dahl by Michael Rosen

Just how did Roald Dahl get into writing? Where did he get his ideas from? What ingredients in his life turned him into the kind of writer he was? Michael Rosen - poet, broadcaster and former Children's Laureate, comes up with some of the answers to these key questions in his lively biography of the world's No.1 storyteller. Full of stories and funny anecdotes from Roald Dahl's school days and family life, Michael Rosen's fascinating observations creates a vivid picture of one of the most famous writers of all time.

I have discovered over the past year or so that biographies are rather popular reads for a number of our teens at school. Sportsmen and sports women, comedians, TV presenters - I have seen all of these in the hands of student or another. Personally I'm not a big reader of biographies as they hold little interest for me, but one of my closest friends loves them as, by his own admission, he is nosey. The students who I have seen reading these books have told me that they love finding out about the lives of celebrities. However, apart from a handful of fab totals from the wonderful Barrington Stoke, biographies are in very short supply for younger readers. Therefore, I couldn't resist replying in the positive when the lovely people at Puffin emailed me to ask if I would be interested in reviewing Fantastic Mr Dahl.

Fantastic Mr Dahl is a relatively short book about one of this country's most beloved authors (Roald Dahl) written by another one of our most beloved authors (Michael Rosen). Rosen states proudly that he is Roald Dahl's biggest fan, and he opens this book with a short anecdote about how he first met the great man. What follows is a delightful peek at the life of arguably one of this country's most famous and most loved writers, starting with his life as a boy, and continuing through his work during the war and then on to his work as a writer.

This is only a brief introduction to the life of Roald Dahl, but Rosen does not waste a single word. He has very cleverly dissected the work of Dahl and focused on key moments or aspects of his life that hint at how he came to be the writer whose work we know so well: Dahl's love of word play and making up new words; his Norwegian background; his love of chocolate. Can you spot where he may have used these in his stories? Michael Rosen also gives young readers a glimpse into how Roald Dahl came up with his ideas, and the ensuing writing process, and in doing so he points out some of the elements that made Dahl's stories so appealing and so timeless.

This is a great book to be read to/by any fan of Dahl's work, and especially to any child who shows even the slightest interest in writing their own stories. Reprints of some of the letters, complete with spelling and grammatical errors, that Dahl wrote as a boy and young man will show children that the man was far from a master of the English language, and could give them confidence to further explore their own ideas in writing.

My only criticism of this book? It finished too soon!

Roald Dahl Day 2011: Guest Post by William Hussey (author of the Witchfinder series)

As promised earlier today, here is the great piece that William Hussey wrote for me to help The Book Zone celebrate Roald Dahl Day 2011. One of the things I love the most about running The Book Zone is the chance it has given me to interact with some of my favourite authors, especially when they are so passionate about books and encouraging kids to read for enjoyment. Massive thanks to William, as well as Sarwat, Ivan and Will who shared their thoughts about Roald Dahl with us earlier today.

William Hussey (author of the Witchfinder series) 

It’s my experience, based on thousands of pupils at hundreds of schools, that  kids love being read to. Not just kids, either – a lot of teachers seem to get a kick out of it as well! Anthropologists, psychologists and lots of other clever clogs with ‘ist’ at the end of their title would probably be able to explain to you far better than I ever could why this is so. All I know is that people really enjoy hearing stories read out loud. As long as the tale’s engrossing and the teller is able to put a bit of oomph into the telling, then an audience will lap it up.

Hearing stories read aloud is a very different psychological experience from sitting down and reading a book yourself. Again, I’m no expert, but words entering through your ears rather than your eyes seem to do different things to different parts of the brain. Imagination is stimulated wonderfully by both experiences, but the sensations that accompany them vary hugely. I think it is absolutely vital that, in their youth, writers have exposure to both private reading and being read to – lots and lots of exposure if possible! Reading by yourself gives you an idea of story structure, character development, how sentences and paragraphs are put together. Being read to gives you an appreciation for the flow of words and how they can create atmosphere that leaps off the page.

I was very lucky in that I grew up in a house chock full of books, and that my parents and grandparents read to me every night. Not only that, my primary school had a dedicated ‘story time’ every day. I remember half a dozen excellent teachers reading to us over the years while we curled up on the carpet, cross-legged, eyes wide, mouths agape. My favourite teacher, and by far the best storyteller, was Mrs Tish. She was a master of voices, the subtle inflection to change mood, the quickening of pace at exciting bits. Mrs Tish loved CS Lewis and Roald Dahl, so by the time I’d moved on to high school we’d journeyed with her through all the known lands of Narnia and into the deepest, darkest imaginings of Mr Dahl.

I remember the heart-warming adventures of the father and son poachers in ‘Danny, the Champion of the World’; the hilarious antics of that most grisly of couples, ‘The Twits’; and, of course, the wish-fulfilment fantasy that beats all others, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. But my absolute favourite, read with all the feeling and gusto Mrs Tish could muster, was Dahl’s delightfully devilish ‘The Witches’. First off, it was a horror story for kids – a common enough thing now (thank God!), but a rarity in my young days. By this time my reading appetites had already turned to old horror comics like ‘Tales from the Crypt’ and ‘The Haunt of Fear’, so I lapped up this dark (and very funny) story of a young boy’s campaign to thwart all the witches of England.

I also loved Dahl’s new take on witches. These weren’t the hook-nosed, black hat-sporting hags from fairytales. They looked like sweet, innocent ladies… until they removed their wigs and slipped off their shoes. Shudder. And then there was the Grand High Witch herself, and the monstrous secret hiding behind that mask of hers. I’ve since read all the grown-up tales of the macabre penned by Dahl, but honestly, not one of them comes close to the nail-biting creepiness of ‘The Witches’. The book has lived so long in my memory that I decided to pay it homage in the last Witchfinder book – check out the chapter ‘Catechism of the Canvas Man’ in ‘The Last Nightfall’, then go back to ‘The Witches’ and the bit where the grandmother tells the story about the little girl from her village.

A book that can chill your marrow on a drowsy summer afternoon in the safe environment of a primary school classroom is worth its weight in gold. By way of the brilliant Mrs Tish, Mr Dahl helped set me on the road to a career scaring children!

Roald Dahl Day 2011

Today is Roald Dahl Day so let the celebrations commence! As legends from the world of chidlren's fiction go you don't get much bigger than Roald Dahl and so last year I wrote this post to celebrate. Obviously being nothing but a mere blogger I thought at the time I would turn to a few of the super-talented friends of The Book Zone to share their thoughts about the man himself and what his work meant to them. Reading their pieces gave me so much enjoyment that I thought what better way to celebrate in 2011 than do it all over again? And so today I am joined by three authors who between them have written some of my favourite books of the past two years: Ivan Brett, Sarwat Chadda and Will Hill. Another of my favourite recent authors, William Hussey, is such a huge fan of Roald Dahl that he wrote a super-long piece for me and so I am going to give it the hnour of its own spot here on The Book Zone later today, so please come back, I guarantee you will not be disappointed. And so, without further ado, let me hand you over to the experts:

Ivan Brett (author of Casper Candlewacks: Death By Pigeon) 

When I was at school, Roald Dahl's books had become such a staple that 'discovering' him was impossible. Of course he inspired me, and the likes of George's Marvellous Medicine and The Witches constantly pop up in my mind when they're not supposed to. But Roald Dahl made his biggest impression on me a decade later when I started reading his adult short stories. The economy of writing is superb: every word is necessary. Add to this the macabre plot twists and irreverent use of language, he's absolutely perfect the art. I'll contend that nobody can ever beat him when it comes to short fiction. I'd recommend the short story collections 'Someone Like You' and 'Kiss Kiss' to newcomers, but there's plenty else around, none of it what you'd expect. (On that note, read them alone before reading them to your kids.)

Three years ago, I started writing short stories because of Roald Dahl. Two years ago, I switched to Children's fiction, probably because of the same guy. What's next? (I'll probably steer clear of mimicking the style of 'My Uncle Oswald', if you're wondering.)

Sarwat Chadda (author of Devil's Kiss and Dark Goddess) 

My latest encounter with Mr. Dahl was listening to his narration of the Fantastic Mr. Fox. I’d seen the movie recently and thought, hey, this will be one for the kids to listen to as we drive around on holiday.

By the end of the journey there were tears and trauma all round.

 
Have you read the Fantastic Mr. Fox? I've never suffered an anxiety attack before but that probably was the closest. It comes across as the book Hannibel Lecter should have written. Mutilations, brutality and in one scene, Mr. Fox's children ask their parents in anxious, timid voices if there will be dogs set on them.

Setting DOGS ON CHILDREN?

What modern author could get away with that? What modern author would even think of it?

His figures are grotesque, macabre and magnificent. Dahl doesn’t care who gets upset and has nightmares, Dahl never let anything stand in the way of his story. That’s what I love about him. By all accounts he wasn’t a nice man at all and maybe that’s why he’s the GREATEST CHILDREN’S AUTHOR EVER.

I think we’ve become more guarded about what we feed our children, like those Victorians who sanitised those nasty, sexual fairy tales. We ‘age band’ and shelve according to tastes while childhood should be all about exploring the widest worlds possible, not tucking books into ‘For Teens’ or for ‘Mature Readers’. Dahl’s stories were utterly immature and utterly without fear. No-one wrote more frightening, edgy tales than he and then (stroke of genius or what?) fed them to us when we were tiny and impressionable.

Will Hill (author of Department 19) 

While I don’t believe that a writer has to live an interesting and exciting life to write interesting and exciting stories, it certainly couldn’t hurt to have lived the life that Roald Dahl brings beautifully and joyously to life in my two favourite books of his, Boy and Going Solo.

The seeds of the novels with which he would later spellbind generations of children (and adults!) are there for all to see – the larger-than-life cast of eccentric adults, the sense of adventure lurking around every corner, the plots children hatch, often to get even with injustices committed by the grown-ups that surround them, are all wrapped up in the fierce sense of love and loyalty that clearly filled the Dahl clan.

Boy covers his time at Llandaff Cathedral School, St. Peter’s School and at Repton, the three institutions that act as the backdrop for his formative years. He encounters triumph (the boxes of chocolates that Cadbury’s ask him and his classmates to review, a gloriously wicked revenge against a local sweet shop owner) alongside his first understanding that the adult world can be unfair, and even cruel (I still find his account of being given ten strokes with the cane very hard to read) before he joins it for himself in the pages of Going Solo.

The second volume chronicles a life that seems almost too full of adventure and derring-do to be real – the young Dahl is shipped out to Tanganyika (as was) to work for Shell, and finds himself surrounded by an astonishing cast of utterly bonkers ex-pat colonials, local tribesmen, snakes, scorpions, lions, and every other conceivable joy. Until the late 1930s, when war comes to the continent, and Dahl joins the RAF as a fighter pilot.

That’s right.
The man who would later devote himself to words, to quietly writing masterpieces of children’s literature in his shed in Great Missenden, spends many months of the Second World War throwing Tiger Moths and Hurricanes around the skies over Egypt and Greece, dogfighting with German fighters and chasing bombers to their targets, experiencing the euphoria and terror of combat, and sustaining terrible injury along the way. It’s almost unbelievable. But it happened, every word of it.



I won’t say any more, as to give away any of the wonders in these two fabulous books (written, as always, in Dahl’s inimitably witty and caustic style) would be a crime for which I can’t think of a suitable punishment. But as pieces of autobiography, as insights into the perennial question of where a writer gets his ideas, and as works of brilliant, effortless storytelling, they succeed on every level, and I defy anyone who reads them to feel otherwise.

~~~

Huge, huge thanks to Ivan, Will and Sarwat for taking the time to do this for The Book Zone. I hope all the readers of this blog have a wonderful Roald Dahl Day and don;t forget to come back later for William Hussey's fab guest post. Last year I celebrated by reading The BFG; this evening it is going to be the turn of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Anyone for some Whipplescrumptiousfudgemallowdelight?

Roald Dahl Day 2010

Today is Roald Dahl Day. Mr Dahl was such a huge influence in my early reading years that I felt I had to write some kind of post in tribute to the man who is arguably one of the greatest British children's writers of all time. There are so many reason why I love his books: his use (and creation of) words and language; the subversive nature of his stories; his vast array of colourful characters that have prety much entered our everyday language; and best of all, the delight I derived (and still do) from reading his books.

My favourite Roald Dahl book is, and always will be, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It is one of the first books I can remember reading all by myself, and the name Willy Wonka is recognised pretty much worldwide, just as he was in the book, and his Oompa-Loompas have become a regular sight at England cricket matches around the world as a popular fancy dress choice for members of the Barmy Army. I also love the fact that it is the other children in this story that are the villains, as compared to many of his books where it was the adults who were the characters we loved to hate. A close second for me is The BFG. I don't think it is a coincidence that my two favourites out of all of his books had Roald Dahl at his most inventive as far as words were concerned, and I know I am not alone in thinking this. Just a couple of days ago a Twitter friend told me that she was inspired by one word alone: Whipplescrumptiousfudgemallowdelight! 

I am a book lover not a book writer so I worried that my little tribute would not be good enough to do justice to the great man, and so I emailed a few people who I felt would be able to put their thoughts about Roald Dahl and what he means to them into writing much better than I could. Thank you to all of the authors who replied with their own tributes to Roald Dahl:

Alan Gibbons (author of the Hell's Underground series)

I had a lovely email from a young woman called Sarah. I taught her when she was seven. She has just graduated as a doctor in the USA. She reminisced about the story times I devoted to Fantastic Mr Fox and The Magic Finger, Danny the Champion of the World and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I worked my way through most of his novels at the end of the day and there was never a murmur from the kids on the mat. It made me realise how the great man's story telling magic made teaching easy. His mischief and invention illuminated the children's life. One of the greatest Human Beans....ever.

Tamsyn Murray (author of My So-Called Afterlife and My So-Called Haunting)

It's hard to choose one favourite Roald Dahl book but my daughter and I really enjoyed reading his memoir - Going Solo. His real-life tales of Africa are every bit as thrilling as his wildest work of fiction and he cheated death on a number of occasions. The book includes a supporting cast of colourful characters and deadly snakes (usually colourful deadly snakes, in fact). If you ever find yourself face to face with a Green Mamba - run!

Andrew Newbound (author of Demon Strike)

Mysteriously, I didn't read an awful lot of Roald Dahl books when I was younger; not sure why???

The ones I did read (James & the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate factory/Great Glass Elevator), I enjoyed. But the one that had the most profound effect on me was Danny, Champion of the World.

I borrowed it from the mobile library one wet and windy half term and devoured it in a day or two. I cherished its massive hardback form; it was such a HUGE book in my small hands, and turning the pages was like reading a old ledger.

The story inside those pages was so simple, yet so powerful that it's still with me today. I liked the way Roald captured the relationship between a Dad and his lad, and wrapped it up in such an engaging, amusing and yet uncomplicated tale.

I loved it, and I guess that's why I love to see my own children, and others too, reading Roald Dahl books today. His special kind of literary magic lives on!

Barry Hutchison (author of Mr Mumbles and Raggy Maggie in the Invisible Fiends series)

Roald Dahl made me a writer. When I was 8, my primary school class did a project on him, a look at "The Man Behind the Books" sort of thing, and that was the first time I realised that books were written by actual real people, and didn't just sort of magically appear in libraries when no-one was looking. I learned a lot about Roald Dahl that day, but I also learned something about myself: I wanted the same job as he had. I wanted to be the man behind some books. Twenty-four years later, I've finally succeeded. Were it not for Roald Dahl, I don't know if I would have.

M.G.Harris (author of The Joshua Files series)

Pretty much the perfect combination of things to appeal to little me - playful language, sadness and loss, grotesque baddies, blissfully edible worlds like James's peach and Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. But the story that really struck me was 'The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar', the first adult book I read, aged 11.

J.D. Irwin (author of Edwin Spencer - Mission Improbable)

I came to Roald Dahl late. I didn’t really ‘get’ reading until I was ten or eleven, then C S Lewis’s Narnia series showed me what I’d been missing. So by the time I picked up my first Dahl book I was a teenager – and it was the one that has been my favourite ever since: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In a way it was a good thing that I wasn’t eight years-old when I first read ‘Charlie’; I remember feeling the contrast of emotions – sadness at the plight of poor Charlie Bucket and his loving family, glee at the comeuppance of vile Veruca Salt and Violet Beauregarde – very strongly, which I don’t think would’ve happened before I was ten. Family relationships were portrayed so brilliantly – how I longed to jump onto the Buckets’ only bed and give each of Charlie’s grandparents a huge hug!

Roald Dahl was a master story-teller, and I’m sure no author has influenced modern-day children’s writing more.   

Alex Keller (author of Haywired)

I read a great deal of Dahl's children's books when I was younger. Despite his more notorious public and private life, Dahl was undeniably a phenomenal writer. I remember falling in love with the dark, strange stories he created. Below is a couple of the things that really struck a cord with me when I was younger.

Names:

Roald Dahl is fantastic at coming up with great names of his characters. In The BFG for example, the names of the evil giants such as “Childchewer”, “Bloodbottler” and “Fleshlumpeater” brilliantly conjure up their ogrish images. The names are simple, but their directness is quite unnerving! Chewing children sounds horrible and painful (if you are a child reading the book); Bloodbottler, for me, creates an image of the giant draining the blood from children in a cold, industrial way; and Fleshlumpeater I imagine would shovel meat into his mouth from wherever he found it, including any human beans that got to near. When I was maybe seven or eight, I think I might have had nightmares because of these names!

Terrible fates:

Dahl's books are also littered with children who suffer terrible fates. Dahl never seemed to hold back when writing about some very gruesome and blood-curdling situations. In The Witches for example, you hear about the witches placing terrible curses on children such as turning them to stone or having them trapped inside a painting for the rest of their lives. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I remember reading about Augustus Gloop being sucked up in the river of chocolate and Violet Beauregarde being turned into a giant blueberry and then “juiced”. The way Dahl would write about these fates was truly chilling, and if memory serves, you don't learn the fate of the bad children. They may not have even survived Wonka's factory!

Considering the age of the audience of Dahl's books, having these events within them seemed very brave. Yet it was the nastiness of these fates that made the books so brilliant: just because you were a child, you could still perish; you were not safe. This was horrifying and completely enthralling at the same time and made the books classics.

~~~

You can see why I asked some professionals now can't you. Thank you so much to Alan, Tamsyn, Andrew, Barry, M.G., Julie and Alex for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. Have a great Roald Dahl Day (I'm going to read The BFG tonight).