Boy: Tales of Childhood

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Dahl was also famous for his inventive, playful use of language, which was a key element to his writing. He invented over 500 new words by scribbling down his words before swapping letters around and adopting spoonerisms and malapropisms. [129] [130] The lexicographer Susan Rennie stated that Dahl built his new words on familiar sounds, adding: Palfrey, Colin (2006). Cardiff Soul: An Underground Guide to the City. Y Lolfa. ISBN 978-0-86243-909-5. Archived from the original on 17 April 2023 . Retrieved 5 October 2016. Roald Dahl: young tales of the unexpected". The Daily Telegraph. 30 August 2008. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022 . Retrieved 16 September 2014. a b Dietsch, Deborah K. (1 December 2013). "Roald Dahl Slept Here: From attaché to author". The Washington Post Magazine. p.10. Archived from the original on 26 January 2014 . Retrieved 30 November 2013.

This is the unadulterated childhood - sad and funny, macabre and delightful - that inspired Britain's favourite storyteller and also speaks of an age which vanished with the coming of the Second World War. According to Dahl's autobiography, Boy: Tales of Childhood, a friend named Michael was viciously caned by headmaster Geoffrey Fisher. Writing in that same book, Dahl reflected: "All through my school life I was appalled by the fact that masters and senior boys were allowed literally to wound other boys, and sometimes quite severely... I couldn't get over it. I never have got over it." [40] Fisher was later appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, and he crowned Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. However, according to Dahl's biographer Jeremy Treglown, [41] the caning took place in May 1933, a year after Fisher had left Repton; the headmaster was in fact J. T. Christie, Fisher's successor as headmaster. Dahl said the incident caused him to "have doubts about religion and even about God". [42] He viewed the brutality of the caning as being the result of the headmaster's enmity towards children, an attitude Dahl would later attribute to the Grand High Witch in The Witches who exclaims that "children are rrreee-volting!". [37]

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The Boy (Malte novel), a 2016 French novel by Marcus Malte, translated in 2019 by Emma Ramadan and Tom Roberge His first children's book was The Gremlins, published in 1943, about mischievous little creatures that were part of Royal Air Force folklore. [104] The RAF pilots blamed the gremlins for all the problems with the aircraft. [105] The protagonist Gus—an RAF pilot, like Dahl—joins forces with the gremlins against a common enemy, Hitler and the Nazis. [106] While at the British Embassy in Washington, Dahl sent a copy to the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who read it to her grandchildren, [104] and the book was commissioned by Walt Disney for a film that was never made. [107] Dahl went on to write some of the best-loved children's stories of the 20th century, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches, Fantastic Mr Fox, The BFG, The Twits and George's Marvellous Medicine. [5] Water on the Brain". MedGadget: Internet Journal of Emerging Medical Technologies. 15 July 2005. Archived from the original on 22 May 2006 . Retrieved 11 May 2006.

Bratberg, Øivind (2016). "Utvandrere". Roald Dahl: Grensesprengeren. Oslo: Dreyer. p.23. ISBN 9788282651806. Roald writes about different confectionery, his love of sweets, his fascination with the local sweet shop ( 11 High Street, Llandaff), and in particular, about the free samples of Cadbury chocolate bars given to him and his schoolmates much later when he was a pupil at Repton School. Young Dahl dreamt of working as an inventor for Cadbury, an idea he said later inspired Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, eventually published in the early 1960s. Some of the sweets he enjoyed as a child were lemon sherbets, pear drops, and liquorice boot laces.Mother: Sofie Dahl {influence upon} Roald Dahl". Archived from the original on 5 December 2014 . Retrieved 16 September 2014. A UK television special titled Roald Dahl's Revolting Rule Book which was hosted by Richard E. Grant and aired on 22 September 2007, commemorated Dahl's 90th birthday and also celebrated his impact as a children's author in popular culture. [131] It also featured eight main rules he applied on all his children's books: