Book Review: Boy by Roald Dahl

 Today I wanted to review a book that my Dad and I listened to on the car journey from Staffordshire to Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire to visit Roald Dahl's former home village. 

As someone who grew up reading and being read to, Roald Dahl and Spike Milligan were two people if you had asked me aged eight, who I would like to meet, I would have answered, them.

I love Matilda and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory in particular. Quotes such as "all the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen" and "however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance was there", made me feel like Dahl's words were truly speaking to me and me alone, and that, is the brilliance of a great writer. 

When I was around seven or eight I won a competition on the Roald Dahl website. I can't remember the question, though I remember the answer was "The Twits". A couple of weeks later a parcel wrapped in paper turned up in the sleeply countryside hamlet of Chapel Chorlton where I lived. It contained a wonderful 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory' boardgame and it was fantastic.  It is the only thing I've ever won, even now.

I also have distinct memories of being around nine or ten and collecting a Roald Dahl magazine every week from WH Smith in Stone. Dad would pre order it for me and every week someone would take a key and open a big metal drawer for me to collect my magazine. I remember distinctly the excitement and the smell of the freshly printed magazine and how it came with little figurines, each depicting a theme, item or character from Dahl's books to be contained in a box with little cut out holes.

Roald Dahl stories have been part of my life as far back as I can remember and shaped the way I saw the world. The small, kind and brave would always be victorious, the bad, would never win and the best adults had never grown up. 

A few months ago, after dreaming of such plans for 3 years, Dad and I decided to book an overnight trip to Great Missenden. This plan was specifically to see where Dahl had spent the last 30 years of his life, where he had a family, and where he wrote most of his children's books in his writing hut at the bottom of the garden in Gipsy House. 

A few days ago we travelled to the little village that houses both the Roald Dahl Muesum and is also where Dahl is buried, next to a beautiful bench on which the names of his children and grandchildren sprawl, as a Copper Beech tree hangs overhead.

We had a lovely time exploring the village and walking the fields to get a glimpse of Gipsy House across the hills. We stayed at a pub which Dahl would have known (having been built in the 1500s) and we ate in what used to be Missenden Abbey. 

The story Boy that we listened to on the journey down to Buckinghamshire, really enabled us to see the life of Roald Dahl from birth to eighteen, when he went to work for the oil company Shell. It reminded us of the truly remarkable life the author had and how this made him into the person he became. It tells of his Norwegian heritage, his family's courage, his experience of public schools and his contempt of the use of the cane back then. It tells of his chance to try chocolate for Cadbury's, his love of letter writing to his Mother, of riding his motorbike around Derbyshire and much much more. 

I had read Boy before, but I felt so glad I had the audiobook on whilst we embarked on our adventure. I will always be inspired by listening to another's experiences and it is a fascinating read. 

Write soon,

Molly