Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl (October 1-4, 2005)
Roald Dahl is a captivating writer, and one of my favorites. Though I have read much of his fiction, I had never read his nonfiction. Boy, is an autobiographical book of Dahl’s childhood. Rather than an autobiography of uninteresting details, Dahl chose to write a series of autobiographical sketches using the moments that stood out most to him and sat on the surface of his memories.
He writes of his mother and siblings, candy stores, having his nose nearly sliced off, other surgeries all without anesthesia, his early schooling, visits to Norway, and violent headmasters and older students and their use of the cane. He reveals real life events, which shaped his later fiction. The origins of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were new Cadbury chocolate samples he and his classmates were mailed to evaluate. You will recognize the models for the hateful adult figures who are out to harm the children in his fiction. His gift for storytelling extends to these real life anecdotes. They are filled with childlike innocence, horror, humor, darkness and joy, often all within a single story.
