Roald Dahl is one of the best loved writers of books for children. His stories have characters from tortoises to giants and some magical plots. He hoped that his books would encourage children to read and make them love reading.
Dahl was born on September 13,1916 in Landaff, Cardif Wales to Norwegian parents. They named him after the famous Norwegian polar explorer, Roald Amundsen.
Dhal was educated in the UK and though he became a famous writer his teachers say that writing was not his strong point at school. After his schooling ended Dahl worked in Africa for the Shell Oil Company.
When the Second World War started Dahl joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a fighter pilot. He is also supposed to have acted as a spy.
In a flight over Libya Dahl’s plane crash landed in the desert and he suffered what he says “was a monumental bash on the head”. The reason for the crash was that he had been given wrong directions.
After the crash, Roald Dahl started to write. His first book was Shot down over Libya. In addition to writing for children Dahl wrote horror stories for adults.
Many of Dahl’s characters were based on people he had met in real life. Willy Wonka is a confectioner or sweet maker in two of Dahl’s most popular books, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. A real man named Willy Wonka wrote to Dahl in 1971, introducing himself. This real Willy Wonka was a postman from Nebraska, USA.
Giants appear in Roald Dahl’s stories. The author himself was a little like a giant though not like the ones he wrote about. Dahl was six feet and six inches tall. His colleagues in the RAF nicknamed him Lofty because of his height.
Roald Dahl did most of his writing in a hut at the bottom of his garden. It was called his ‘writing hut’. He kept a huge ball made of chocolate wrappers as a memento in this hut. He never learnt to type and wrote stories such as Matilda and James and the giant peach with pencils.When he died in 1990 his pencils were buried with him. Dahl created many new and strange words during his writing such as snozzcumbers and snozzberries. There is an Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary which will help you understand these words.
Many of his books have been made into movies and TV shows.
Among his most popular books are Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the giant peach and The BFG.
Dahl died on November 23, 1990 in Oxford , UK.
(Sources: National Geographic kids, Kiddleencyclopaedia,roalddahl facts.com/books-list)