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During his years at Repton, the Cadbury chocolate company occasionally sent boxes of new chocolates to the school to be tested by the pupils. [46] Dahl dreamt of inventing a new chocolate bar that would win the praise of Mr Cadbury himself; this inspired him in writing his third children's book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), and to refer to chocolate in other children's books. [47]
Dahl first attended The Cathedral School, Llandaff. At age eight, he and four of his friends were caned by the headmaster after putting a dead mouse in a jar of gobstoppers at the local sweet shop, [5] which was owned by a "mean and loathsome" old woman named Mrs Pratchett. [5] The five boys named their prank the " Great Mouse Plot of 1924". [30] Mrs Pratchett inspired Dahl's creation of the cruel headmistress Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, and a prank, this time in a water jug belonging to Trunchbull, would also appear in the book. [31] [32] Gobstoppers were a favourite sweet among British schoolboys between the two World Wars, and Dahl referred to them in his fictional Everlasting Gobstopper which was featured in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. [33] The New Elizabethans – Roald Dahl". BBC. Archived from the original on 25 November 2012 . Retrieved 8 August 2016. Receiving the 1983 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, Dahl encouraged his children and his readers to let their imagination run free. His daughter Lucy stated "his spirit was so large and so big he taught us to believe in magic." [76] She said her father later told her that if they had simply said goodnight after a bedtime story, he assumed it wasn't a good idea. But if they begged him to continue, he knew he was on to something, and the story would sometimes turn into a book. [128]In 2023, Puffin Books, which holds the rights to all Dahl's children's books, ignited controversy after they hired sensitivity readers to go through the original text of Dahl's works, which led to hundreds of revisions to his books; The Telegraph published a list of many of these changes. [215] The move was supported by a number of authors, most notably by Joanne Harris, chair of the Society of Authors, but drew many more critical responses. [216] [217] Several public figures, including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, author Salman Rushdie, and Queen Camilla all spoke out against the changes. [218] [219] [220] [221] It was reported that when Dahl was alive, he had spoken out very strongly against any changes ever being made to any of his books. [222] [223] On 23February2023, Puffin announced it would release an unedited selection of Dahl's children's books as 'The Roald Dahl Classic Collection', stating "We've listened to the debate over the past week which has reaffirmed the extraordinary power of Roald Dahl's books" and "recognise the importance of keeping Dahl's classic texts in print." [224] [225] Filmography Writing roles Year Liukkonen, Petri. "Roald Dahl". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 10 February 2015. Nine Man-Eating Giants: Each man-eating giant is about 50-feet-tall and proportionately broad and powerful. Their only clothes are skirt-like coverings around their waists. According to the BFG, the flavours of the humans that the man-eating giants dine on depends on their country of origin: Turks taste like turkey, Greeks are too greasy (and hence apparently no giant ever visits that country), people from Panama taste like hats, the Welsh taste like fish, people from Jersey taste like cardigans, and the Danes taste like dogs.
Dahl's childhood sweetshop and its influence on his books". BBC News. 13 September 2016. Archived from the original on 22 September 2017 . Retrieved 8 October 2022.
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Flood, Alison (9 January 2012). "Roald Dahl stamps honour classic children's author". The Guardian . Retrieved 9 January 2022. Day, Elizabeth (9 November 2008). "My years with Roald. Felicity Dahl talks to Elizabeth Day". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Archived from the original on 31 October 2019 . Retrieved 16 May 2019. . In November 1939, Dahl joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as an aircraftman with service number 774022. [56] After a 600-mile (970km) car journey from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi, he was accepted for flight training with sixteen other men, of whom only three survived the war. With seven hours and 40 minutes experience in a De Havilland Tiger Moth, he flew solo; [57] Dahl enjoyed watching the wildlife of Kenya during his flights. He continued to advanced flying training in Iraq, at RAF Habbaniya, 50 miles (80km) west of Baghdad. Following six months' training on Hawker Harts, Dahl was commissioned as a pilot officer on 24 August 1940, and was judged ready to join a squadron and face the enemy. [56] [58] Dahl was flying a Gloster Gladiator when he crash landed in Libya The truth is, none of us saves ourselves. We save each other. Or not. World Book Day is a chance to celebrate the power and pleasure of reading, to help our children build the apparatus of happiness within themselves. It should also be a day to ask ourselves whether we are doing right by our children, by our future. Because, to quote the smash hit musical Matilda: “If you sit around and let them get on top, you / Might as well be saying you think that it’s OK / And that’s not right.” The BFG: A friendly 24-foot-tall giant who has superhuman hearing and immense speed. His primary occupation is the collection and distribution of good dreams to children. He also appears in another novel, Danny, the Champion of the World, in which he is introduced as a folkloric character. His name is an initialism of 'Big Friendly Giant'. Voiced by David Jason in the 1989 film and motion-captured by Mark Rylance in the 2016 film.
a b Cumming, Ed; Buchanan, Abigail; Holl-Allen, Genevieve; Smith, Benedict (24 February 2023). "The Writing of Roald Dahl". The Telegraph . Retrieved 20 March 2023.
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According to Dahl's autobiography, Boy: Tales of Childhood, a friend named Michael was viciously caned by headmaster Geoffrey Fisher. Writing in that same book, Dahl reflected: "All through my school life I was appalled by the fact that masters and senior boys were allowed literally to wound other boys, and sometimes quite severely... I couldn't get over it. I never have got over it." [40] Fisher was later appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, and he crowned Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. However, according to Dahl's biographer Jeremy Treglown, [41] the caning took place in May 1933, a year after Fisher had left Repton; the headmaster was in fact J. T. Christie, Fisher's successor as headmaster. Dahl said the incident caused him to "have doubts about religion and even about God". [42] He viewed the brutality of the caning as being the result of the headmaster's enmity towards children, an attitude Dahl would later attribute to the Grand High Witch in The Witches who exclaims that "children are rrreee-volting!". [37]
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