Born13 September 1916  - Cardiff, Wales  

Died 23 November 1990 (aged 74) - Oxford, England

Every 13th September is Roald Dahl Day which celebrates the author’s characters, stories and life.With over 200 million copies of his books sold worldwide and many of his stories adapted for stage and screen, there is a lot to enjoy and celebrate! 

Roald Dahl wrote 17 children’s novels and 20 books for children in total. In total he has published 48 books (not including published screenplays and plays). This total does include treasuries and collected works and books published after his death.

Before looking at one of his well known books – we first must look at gobblefunking - If you gobblefunk with words, you play around with them and invent new words or meanings. The word gobblefunk sounds a bit like gobbledegook, a kind of language that some grown-ups use

Did you know Roald Dahl invented 500 words and character names, from the Oompa-Loompas and whizzpopping to the less well known humplecrimp, lixivate and zoonk?

James & the Giant Peach

When he is four years old, a rhinoceros with a strange carnivorous appetite escapes from the zoo and eats James' parents.  He ends up with his two cruel aunts, Spiker and Sponge. Instead of caring for him, they treat him badly, feed him improperly, and force him to sleep on bare floorboards.

After James had been living with his aunts for three years, he meets a mysterious man who gives him a bag of magical crystals, instructing James to use them in a potion that would change his life for the better. While returning home, James stumbles and spills the bag on the ground, losing the crystals as they dig themselves underground. A nearby peach tree, in turn, produces a single peach which soon grows to the size of a house. Spiker and Sponge build a fence around it and earn money by selling viewing tickets to tourists; James is locked in the house only able to see the peach through the bars of his bedroom window.

After the tourists have gone, James is assigned to clean the rubbish around the peach and finds a tunnel inside it. He enters it and meets Centipede, Miss Spider, Old Green Grasshopper, Earthworm, Ladybug, Glowworm, and Silkworm who become his friends.

The next day, Centipede cuts the stem of the peach, causing it to roll away and crush James' aunts. It reaches the sea and is surrounded by ravenous sharks. James uses Miss Spider and Silkworm to make threads, while Earthworm is used as bait and draws 502 seagulls to the peach, whereupon the threads are tied on their necks. The peach is lifted off the water. High above the clouds, the peach encounters the Cloud-Men who are portrayed as responsible for weather phenomena like hailstorms and rainbows. Centipede mocks the Cloud-Men, but James is able to avoid an altercation by bringing the peach to a lower altitude. James realizes that the group has reached New York.

The massive peach lands on the spire of the Empire States Building. It is mistaken as a bomb at first, resulting in the arrival of police and firemen. Calming the crowd, James tells his story and becomes friends with many children in New York, they eat the peach and James and his friends get their own jobs.

 “Up to now, a whole lot of grown-ups have written reviews, but none of them have really known what they were talking about because a grown-up talking about a children’s book is like a man talking about a woman’s hat.”

Did you know……

• Dahl’s first book for children was The Gremlins, published in 1943.
• Roald Dahl had many jobs including being a fighter pilot in World War Two and working as a spy. He also spent six months recovering from a plane crash, in an Egyptian hospital. 
• As well as writing some of the most celebrated and successful children’s books of all time, Roald Dahl also worked on the film Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang and on the James Bond franchise. 
• In 1971, a real Willy Wonka wrote to Roald Dahl. He was a postman.
• Dahl often based his characters on people he had met in real life. For example, it is said that the grandmother in The Witches is inspired by his own mother, Sofie.
•  Sadly, Roald Dahl had a very tragic childhood, including the deaths of both his sister and father before he left primary school. 
• Roald Dahl was a chocolate taster during his time at school.
• He was buried with some of his favourite things, including: a power saw, HB pencils, chocolate, red wine and his snooker cues.