Long-time readers will recall that last year I gave a Roald Dahl presentation for my nephew’s third-grade class in Willoughby. It went so well that his teacher has asked me to come back again this year. Fun, right? So that’s scheduled for next week. Well, when Amy (who is a librarian, you know) found out, she asked me to come speak at the Abbotsleigh School Literary Festival too. That was last week, and it was pretty hilarious. I mean, the program was full of actual children’s authors and important people — and ME. I gave the same presentation as last year: who I am, how I became a Dahl fan, a bit about Dahl’s life, how I started my website, how I visited Gipsy House, and then some of the more interesting items from my Dahl collection. I had two sessions, first the fourth-graders and then the third-graders. I didn’t realise there was such a huge cognitive leap between those age groups! The fouth-graders were well-behaved and attentive, and they asked lots of good questions about Dahl. They were also strangely obsessed with hearing about his divorce! The third-graders were more fidgety and kept asking the same questions over and over. One of them asked what he died of, and I made the mistake of saying “pneumonia” (among other things). That led to 10 minutes of “What’s pneumonia?!” and “My grandpa had pneumonia but he didn’t die!” Lesson of the day: 9-year-olds go for the soap opera; 8-year-olds go for death and disease.
Category: Roald Dahl
-
RIP Patricia Neal
Patricia Neal has passed away from lung cancer at 84. She was Roald Dahl‘s first wife and the mother of his children. She had an amazing life. (Thanks to Christopher for the tip.)
-
Roald Dahl Presentation
I just realised that I completely forgot to tell you how it went! Two weeks ago I headed off to Willoughby Public School, where my nephew Kurt is a third grader. They’ve been studying Roald Dahl lately, and Kurt had showed his class my website. His teacher got excited and invited me to come give a talk. So I whipped up a little presentation and brought along some of the rare items from my Dahl collection. The kids were great, listening attentively and asking really good questions. (Third graders do fidget a lot though!) They were really excited that I got to visit Gipsy House and meet Liccy Dahl. I gave them a collective present of some Dahl-themed board games I was given by the manufacturer, and I lent their teachers a few books and movies. A very sweet little boy had evidently been nominated as the official “thanker,” and he presented me with a card and a W.P.S. pen and coffee mug. Sweet! At the end of the hour, one little girl asked if she could email me a story she’d written about Roald Dahl. “Sure,” I said. “Your teacher can give you my email address.” That set off a chorus of “Me too! Me too!” The teacher looked at me questioningly. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” “It’s fine,” I assured her. The next day I had more than 20 emails in my Inbox. (Whoops.) Overall it was a lot of fun, and I’m really grateful that they invited me. I may have to do it again next year!
-
Vita-Wonka
A photographer has been travelling the world, taking photos of all the oldest living things. She should be collecting it all to make Vita-Wonk!
-
Anglo-Saxon Hoard
Speaking of Roald Dahl, this article about a major Anglo-Saxon treasure find in England reminded me immediately of Dahl’s story about the Mildenhall Treasure. Exciting!
-
Fantastic Mr Fox
The trailer for the upcoming Fantastic Mr Fox movie is out… and I kinda liked it! (I’m as surprised as you are.) It bears very little resemblance to the original story, but to be honest it was never one of Dahl’s best works anyway. (It also underwent extensive revisions, as the original was even more a glorification of thievery.) I actually chuckled quite a few times during the trailer, especially at the young fox with the tube sock on his head. So for the moment, I’m cautiously optimistic about this one…
I really should start updating my Dahl site again. This movie could generate some serious traffic.
-
Dirty Dahl
Hat tip to Andrew for pointing me to today’s Australian, which features a story about Roald Dahl’s sexy adventures as a “World War II spy.” *snort* Look, the guy was no angel, and he certainly got around a lot when he was younger. But he also has a documented history of embellishing his wartime adventures after the fact. I take all this stuff with a huge grain of salt.
And by the way, what a crappy article! It doesn’t even mention the name of the new book which apparently prompted the piece. If I was the author, I’d be annoyed.
-
The Great Automatic Grammatizator
This article about books written by computers reminded me of something… Oh, that’s right! The Great Automatic Grammatizator! The obvious next step is for this Philip Parker guy to start paying “real” authors not to write.
-
Toad-in-the-Hole
“…I was about your age then, maybe a little older, and in those days we always had a hot tea in the kitchen at five o’clock. I can remember exactly what was on the table that evening. It was my favorite thing of all, toad-in-the-hole, and my mum could make toad-in-the-hole like nobody else in the world. She did it in an enormous pan with yorkshire pudding very brown and crisp on top and raised up in huge bubbly mountains. In between the mountains you could see the sausages half buried in the batter. Fantastic it was…”
– Danny’s father in Danny the Champion of the WorldHow awesome is it that I live with someone who will indulge a whim and cook me a special dinner based on something out of a beloved children’s book? It was delicious.
-
Happy birthday, Roald!
Happy birthday, Roald! Can you believe I actually forgot? What amused me about this article is that I’ve actually met one of the people quoted. Amanda Conquy is the one who initially contacted me eight years ago about the roalddahl.org domain (which I owned). I happily signed it over to them, of course. She also put me into contact with Felicity Dahl and helped arrange my visit in 2000. Glad to see she’s still promoting Dahl’s work!
