Dear Reader
(That’s you, by the way.)
Have you ever thought. ‘Gosh, I wish there were a witty and entertaining yet riveting and informative book about Roald Dahl’s world’? Perhaps you long to read all about the characters who feature in his stories, and are also pretty keen to find out about the ha-ha-hilarious (but occasionally VERY DARK AND GRUESOME) things that happen to them. If there were such a book … would you grab it with both hands and read it from cover to cover immediately?
You would?
How utterly wonderful and completely marvellous! Because guess what?
This is that book!
HOORAY!

This is the introduction to the wonderful world of Roald Dahl, not only for those of us who have been enjoying his stories forever, but also for those who have just discovered him. We find out who Roald Dahl really was: a photographer, a fighter pilot, a medical inventor and even a spy! He was a toilet-seat warmer at boarding school and really did put a dead mouse in a sweets jar. We find out when his birthday was and how he tested chocolate for Cadbury’s when he was at school.

Lots of pages have something to do with Roald Dahl’s fantastic stories: like ‘Six Things to do with a Giant Peach’, ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine with ten coloured bottles hidden throughout the book and a crazy page’, ‘Are You a Twit with an incredibly scientific test to see if you are one’.

There’s a page about Wonka’s Chocolate Factory that makes you desperate to eat a bar of delicious chocolate and the ‘BFG’s Guide to Dreamcatching’ with that Big Friendly Giant inviting us to catch a dream.

There are terribly tricky quizzes, even one to check if you have a Magic Finger! There is also a Roald Dahl Recipe Special, an Enormous Roald Dahl Quiz that takes up six pages and a double-page spread with a gloriumtiously fun Snakes Not Ladders game to play with your friends.

Every page is illustrated by the fantastic Quentin Blake who was Roald Dahl’s favourite illustrator. Apart from being famous too, we discover that Quentin Blake is shorter than Roald Dahl, but most people are. Roald Dahl was nearly two metres tall!

Lucky the children who find this book in their Christmas stocking for they (and their mums and dads) will be swept away into the fantastic world of Roald Dahl and fall in love again with his incredible characters.

Reviewed by Merle Morcom
Age Guide 7 to 107