I’ve never met any one who hasn’t been introduced to Roald Dahl. For most, if not all of us here in Britain we were taught about his work during our school education. To celebrate Roald Dahl Day 2018 I’ve put together just a little of my own experiences with his writing throughout my life.
First Encounter
By six years old I had already developed such a love of reading that I surpassed my classmates and was given a golden ticket, well truthfully it was a pink slip. This magical piece of card gave me permission, as an infant school pupil, to take two books from the junior school library each week for home-reading.
My very first choice when I got there was Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox.
A Childhood Tale
My favourite memory of reading and listening to stories of Roald Dahl came about when love of his books convinced me that I too wanted to be a writer.
Time feels fluid when you’re a child but I believe I was eight years old when my parents checked out Dahl’s The Twits from our public library. For a while we would go each Saturday morning so I could choose a book to read over the weekend. My grandfather had recently passed and he’d left us enough money to purchase our first computer.
Sunday lunchtime came and I’d been quiet all morning, not unusual for me as I was more of a read, write or draw child, but something had held my attention for hours on end- so my parents came to investigate…
They found me sitting at our boxy little computer in the dining room printing page upon page. I’d typed up over half of The Twits and proudly told my parents that I’d written a book.
They quickly turned off the printer (imagine how much paper and ink cost in 1996!) and explained what I’d later learn to be plagiarism.
Top Three
It’s so difficult to decide how to rank Roald Dahl’s books. I see it on this day each year all over social media and I’m sure my choices vary every time. For this post I’ve thought back and chosen my top 3 choices based on how many times I re-read them over my life. Which led me to The BFG, Matilda and George’s Marvellous Medicine.
Reading Today
Somehow I made it this far having never read The Witches! It was never available at my library, I couldn’t find it on the shelves at school and though I’ve seen snippets of the movie, I still don’t know the story.
It seems fitting that on Roald Dahl Day at the age of thirty I will finally finish his canon 🙂
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An Average Life 
Aww who doesn’t love a bit of Roald Dahl! The BFG is one of my all time faves.
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