DAY THREE - CHILDHOOD DREAMS (Roald Dahl in general)

Member Name: Pjenkins

Product:	Roald Dahl in general
Date:	27/03/02 (123 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Stirs the imagination

Disadvantages: None

Education. Education. Education.

How can you get ensure a good one for your kiddies? How can you ensure that they learn to read at an early age and are not sucked in by the bright lights and groovy music of a Playstation? (After all, they have been created by the devil, you know...). In the age of interactive telly, the internet, mobile phones which encourage you 2 a-bree-v-8 v-ry-thng and of course all that soul destroying boom, boom, boom pop music. (You know that if you play some CD’s backwards, you can hear Westlife’s demonic sound? No hold on that’s if you play them forwards…). Where was I? Oh yes. Kiddie winkles and how to educate them despite the pressures of modern life.

Sticking with my eighties theme, I decided that I should look at some proper, grown up, educational literature from that era, so that we can teach the little darlings everything that they need to know in life from books from the good old days. I look along my bookshelf. Tolstoy? Doesn’t really stick with my eighties theme. Maybe 1880’s, but that’s not what I’m going for. Barbara Cartland? I don’t own any Barbara Cartland. (Had you going there for a minute though didn’t I!) I then came across a large bank of books which have caused my nice new Argos bookshelf (which I won’t be writing an op about) to sag. I realised that Roald Dahl, a writer of a suitable brand of entertaining modern fiction held nearly 10% of my entire book collection, which out of 300 odd books isn’t half bad.

Is he strictly nineteen eighties though, I thought? He was an old codger when I was young, so he must have been writing forever. (See biog op’s of him on Dooyoo or read Boy & Going Solo)

Well, was I reading his stuff in the seventies? Was I reading at all in the seventies? No was my answer (I didn’t pick up Hard Times till I was at least 2 ½), and it seems to me also that Dahl really became th
e literary ‘star’ which we recognise as a children’s icon during this decade. This made him a suitable icon for me to want to write about during this ‘exploration’ of my childhood, so I figured, why the hell not.

And thus it came to be that Pjenkins informed the Dooyoo community of the books he read during the years 1984 –1989. There are just a selection here as there are far two many to go into without boring you silly and putting you off reading any of his stuff ever again.

JAMES & THE GIANT PEACH
James’s parents were eaten by an angry escaped rhinoceros from the London Zoo, and since then he’s lived on a hill with his nasty Aunt Sponge and equally terrible Aunt Spiker. They treat him like a slave, and make his life a living nightmare. Only when a small wizardy man comes along with a bag of magic does James have the chance to escape. As he take his bag of magic away however, he trips under the branches of the old peach tree, and the contents of his magic bag are lost forever…..

Or obviously not. As the title suggests, the peach tree is the recipient of the magic, giving James the chance to meet some wonderful new friends, including the ever practical Miss Spider, the self absorbed Centipede and the wise old Grasshopper. Everyone who has ever felt all alone in the world and dreamed of running away should read this, as it’s a beautiful story, and arguably one of Dahl's most well written pieces.

CHARLIE & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (NOT FORGETTING THE GREAT GLASS ELEVATOR)
Okay hold the ladies back, this ones all about chocolate. Lovely sweet choccies! Our hero, Charlie (cute kid, big family, low income – obviously symbolic of backlash against capitalist Britain) (No?) wins the chance to see Mr Wonka’s wonderful Chocolate factory, which contains various magical machines, creating the world best confectionery.

Once inside, the other childre
n who have been lucky enough to find a golden ticket display their true characters. (One’s a big greedy chap, one’s obsessed with the TV, one’s a spoilt brat with the final one doing nothing but chew gum all day) All are naughty kiddies and thus meet with a sticky end. (You see what I was doing there? You know. Chocolate. Sticky End. See? Useless, all of you)

The sequel to the chocolate factory was the Great Glass Elevator, which blasted off into space and led Charlie to more hair-raising adventures with Mr Wonka. Not such a great read this one in my opinion, but you should take a look if you’re a die-hard Dahl fan.

GEORGE’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE
I will never forget watching Rik Mayall read this on Jackanory. For three reasons. 1) It was the only decent thing I’ve ever seen Mr Mayall do. 2) I loved Jackanory and was distraught when they removed it from the TV schedule and 3) It was the most amazing story I had ever heard! George, who is fed up with his mean old Grandma, decides that when it is time to give her daily dose of medicine at 11 ‘o’ clock, that he will make his own medicine from all the things he finds in the house and teach her a lesson.

He spends all morning putting in everything from lipsticks to brown paint to washing powder and ends up giving Grandma the biggest shock of her life! I won’t spoil the ending for you, but it’s one of the most entertaining reads ever penned, for adults or kids. It’s also one of the shorter books, that you can get through in half an hour if you really put your mind to it.

A note for parents – Watch your sons/daughters after you read this one to them. EVERY kid who has ever come into contact with this book has tried it for themselves, so watch out!

MATILDA
Bullying is one thing. Adults who bully, that’s another. Our heroine, Matilda, has the worst parents in the world. They sit in front of the
television all day and do nothing except scream at Matilda to stop reading the books she is so interested in.(She's just wasting her time after all...) Things are no better when she reaches school and finds that the Headmistress, Miss Trunchbull is an ex-olympic hammer thrower, and practices her skill on the children attending her prison like establishment.

It is only when Matilda meets Miss Honey, a teacher that sees her true potential that she finds she has a special ability which could change the way the school (and her home life) runs forever.

This book is one of the few that have made the transition successfully to the big screen, with Danny Devito’s version in the mid 90’s. It’s magical and really drums home how important learning is for children. Maybe a few adults should take a look at this one…

REVOLTING RHYMES
Your favourite Nursery Rhymes, but always with a demonic twist. Snow White runs off to the woods, only to shack up with seven ex-jockeys who have a real gambling problem. Jack, our hero manages to get away with all the Giant’s gold, but at the expense of his poor old Mum, who is so smelly that the Giant sniffs her out and gobbles her up. My favourite lines from these poems are from Little Red Riding Hood, who finds an alternative way to deal with that nasty wolf.

The small girl smiles, One eyelid flickers.
She whips a pistol from her knickers.
She aims it at the creature's head
And bang, bang, bang, she shoots him dead.

You can’t top that can you.


A quick list of other Dahl books you should look out for -

The Twits, Dirty Beasts, The Witches, Boy, The BFG, Esio Trot, The Vicar of Nibbleswicke, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Magic Finger…. I could go on like this for ages. I’ll tell you to go to Amazon instead, that would be quicker. Or get off your bum and go down the library, you’ll find them all there.


By the way - do not assume that because I have only concentrated on Dahl's children's work here, that he only writes for the little-uns. See his 'Tales of the unexpected' series for more adult tales of mystery and suspense which are equally well written for the 'mature' (old codgers like us) audience.

So how does all this fit in with the quote from our dear Mr Blair at top of this op? Surely I’m not implying that encouraging children to go out hunting wild animals with pistols will help them become better people? No, I’ll leave that one to the countryside alliance. (now, now PJ that’s a different op).

How can we improve our children’s education? Make them read. More precisely, make them read this. Dahl’s books are not filled with instructions on how to count to ten to improive their number skills, nor do they feature chapters about the capital cities of Europe to improve geographical knowledge. The subject these books will help children in is not taught in any schools, nor is it something that you could ever really define. The subject is imagination, that crazy other being which so much of the world seems to have forgotten about.

With these books I was taken to worlds which people only dream of. The hero’s were always children, and in some cases I felt as if I could do what they did. Perhaps I could create a marvelous medicine! Would I find a golden ticket in a chocolate bar? Perhaps a Big Friendly Giant would come to my house tonight and whisk me off to help him collect dreams. Who knows, it still might happen, and I secretly sit in hope.

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