Roald Dahl: Popular Children's Literature in Britain

Source: poemas-del-alma.com

Dear friends,

Today, in my blog, I would like to pay tribute to Roald Dahl, one of the most famous children’s writers in the world. Roald Dahl, whose parents were Norwegian, was born in South Wales in 1916. He had five sisters, one of whom died at age seven. His life was punctuated by an endless series of misfortunes, deaths and diseases that have affected him and all his beloved ones. When Dahl was three, his father died, and when he was seven, he was sent to boarding school. In later accounts, he related the bullying and beatings he endured there. Someone else might have fallen into depression, maybe coming to suicide. On the contrary, Dahl managed to find a safe haven in his great irony and left us many fantastic pages.

It is difficult to describe Dahl's books because they are so different from the typical children's book. The author's childhood experiences, the death of his sister and his father, and his unhappy years in boarding school influenced his work as did his vivid imagination. With his witches, monsters and giants, he has exorcised the demons that gripped his soul. 

He died 25 years ago but children still love him and his many books, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits and Matilda. 

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Everyone knows that his stories are special but the quality that makes them unique is difficult to define. The story told in Matilda for example is simple and straightforward, but the greatest strength of this novel is to be able to humanize the prototypes of the classic fairy tale. In Matilda, monsters are real people and the ability of Dahl is to describe them in an effective manner.

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If you want to listen to Matilda’s audiobook, click on the video here.

Source: thepulpzine.com

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By some critics and parents, his books are considered too scary and too grim for kids. So why do children still love his books? Probably just for this darkness and scariness. In fact, most of the best children’s stories are quite dark. In the 19th Century Hansel and Gretel involved a witch wanting to cook children in her oven, while Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist featured an orphan living out a miserable childhood. 

Dahl’s books make you look at the world differently. According to him, there are giants roaming around, but we just don’t see them. He uses various literary devices to create vivid images and sounds for his characters and readers. Through personification, Dahl creates human-like animals. These animals have a mind of their own and can speak like a real human.

Moreover, children love his bizarre sense of humour. He is definitely more than humorous. He uses certain characters to teach a lesson. He puts a twist on his words and arranges the sentence structure to a point of wackiness at times. He also incorporates “poor English” as a play on the characters personality and subconsciously young readers are recognizing and even correcting the “poor English” making his stories educational and thrilling for young readers.

Last but not least, Dahl's books speak directly to children without mince words. Everything he says in his books is told with a kind of bitterness. If on the one hand, this disturbs some parents, on the other, reading Dahl may be a way to teach children in a serene way to defend themselves from the attacks of life and bad people. It's never too early to start!

Whatever you opinion might be, from his creative use of language to his memorable characters, Dahl's books have been adapted into musicals, films, plays, TV shows, operas, artworks, and much more. The recent worldwide success of the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, is a clear indication of the author's popularity and status as an international household name. 

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If you want to listen to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s audiobook, click on the video here.

Source: monadarling.com

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Monstrously, yours.

Teacher Barbara