Sunday, September 14, 2008

Tales of the Unexpected


It was quite amazing today to see the picture of young Ted getting his book signed all those years ago by Roald Dahl. He still looks a big fan (right).

Rouwen Lim in Starmag interviews local readers about their own encounters with Dahl's books including a couple of other friends - Janet Tay and Lansell Tadevin, in conjunction with celebrations the annual Roald Dahl Day. (If you bought the print version of the Star, you'll also find a couple of tasty discount vouchers.)

Rouwen had asked me to write about Dahl too, but by the time I had recovered enough from the bad stomach thingy that began last weekend, I guess the deadline had passed. Here 'tis anyway :

My introduction to Roald Dahl was finding one of his collections of short fiction, Kiss Kiss, in a bookshop in the early '70's. I loved this book so much I read his other collections as well. I still don't think that anyone can better Dahl in the genre of twisty tailed short stories. Later, I can remember a television series based on the stories - Tales of the Unexpected*.

I came across his children's books when I started teaching in Birmingham schools as they were popular class readers. I have a particular fondness for Matilda which I read aloud to my niece Lauren and think I enjoyed more than she did!
*Thinking about this sent me on a nostalgia trip to YouTube where I found one of the episodes, Flypaper. Here's Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Enjoy!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A great name to use in book titles:

"Never a Dahl Moment"
"Dahl M for Mirth-er"
"Masala and Dahl"

:-)

PPDD