This month, we
learned a lot we didn’t know, about Roald Dahl.
We all agreed
that he is indeed Fantastic. We hadn’t known that he was irritable – or so tall
– or that he inherited so much money from his dad …
Not all of us had
read a biography before, and on the whole we think that we prefer to read
autobiographies (and in fact Maya has read BOY, which is Roald Dahl’s own
autobiography). We worried about whether we could trust what Michael Rosen
said, since he wasn’t there to know exactly what happened – and we weren’t sure
that he needed to keep asking what we thought about things.
Grace
particularly liked the pull-out pages which have lots of fascinating facts: one
of our favourites was the fact that there are giant footprints leading to Roald
Dahl’s grave!
We learned that a
lot of sad things happened in Roald Dahl’s life, like his house being bombed
and losing all his photographs and letters (Scarlett said she knew how that
might feel – she couldn’t bear to lose her camera), and lots of exciting things
too, like being a spy in the war (that was Grace’s favourite bit).
One thing we
didn’t learn was when he learned to drive: because we were all very impressed
to discover that he bought himself a motorbike when he was just sixteen, and
used to ride it around from his boarding school. Bea explained that back when
Roald Dahl was a teenager, you didn’t have to have a driving license in the
same way. Perhaps he even taught himself how to ride the motorbike. You
wouldn’t be allowed to do that now!
Scarlett really
enjoyed this book – particularly finding out the alternate endings from when
Roald Dahl first wrote his stories (we learned that Matilda was a baddy, which
seems hard to believe now we know her so well).
It was interesting
that Roald Dahl tried out so many things before he became an author. We thought
it seemed that he was good at a lot of things, but was most comfortable with
story writing. Giacomo noticed that it hadn’t been easy for him to become a
writer – it was sad that his first book nearly got made into a film in
Hollywood but then they decided not in the end. Roald must have been
disappointed – but then we realized how many of his books had been made into
excellent films, and that must have cheered him up!
We could
understand how you might change your mind about what you want to be, though:
Maya used to want to be a horserider, or a singer, but now she wants to be an
actress. Rafferty liked learning that if Roald Dahl hadn’t been a writer, he
wanted to be a doctor: Raf’s going to run a zoo with his friends when he grows
up, he’s going to be the zoo vet, which sounds a bit like the beginning of a
Roald Dahl story …
We liked that
Roald Dahl took any good opportunities to try different things and see the
world.
But really we
discovered that most of his inspiration came from his horrible school days.
Being a toilet seat warmer! Really horrible … Although we suspect he might have
made it sound worse than it really was, for dramatic effect. Scarlett pointed
out that although he said he hated his matron, there was the story of all the
boys giving her a present: and you don’t really give presents to people you
don’t like, do you?
We thought what
it would be like to go away to boarding school aged seven. Some of us have been
away on school trips to Rooters holiday camp, and we thought it might be a bit
like that. It’s okay if you like the teachers, but horrible if they’re not.
We imagined
boarding school how it would be if we ran it: Grace thought it would be good to
have pet rabbits, and jelly beans for breakfast lunch and tea (we weren’t all
so sure about the jelly beans – Rafferty would rather have Turkish Delight for
pudding, and a balanced diet of bagel with pesto and a poached egg, and carrot
and coriander soup). Maya added four poster beds, horses, and indoor swimming pool,
a dance studio, a theatre - and a dressing up closet the size of a ballroom.
Giacomo thought there would fencing, and prizes; and Scarlett wanted to go
swimming in jelly beans. All of which sounds a lot more fun than Roald Dahl’s
school!
So, you see, we
learned a lot that we didn’t know - and had a lot of fun imagining the rest ...
See you all next
month, when we’ll be talking about FIVE CHILDREN AND IT, which was written more
than a hundred years ago by a lady who lived very near here, called E.Nesbit.
Jacqueline Wilson has written a book inspired by her original story, called
FOUR CHILDREN AND IT: I wonder how different they are?
