Dahl would have it no other way I am a grown up, after all.ĥ. You may find the order revolting, so know it is wholly subjective and driven solely by my whims and desires. Dahl’s books never sugarcoated the ills of the world but presented them instead as dastardly evils in need of being faced and vanquished.īut with characters that include wicked witches with nasty sores on their scalps, prank-prone Twits covered in hair all over, good-natured female spiders and Big Friendly Giants, it’s no surprise his books have proven fertile ground for both sublime cinematic gems and deliriously horrid film versions.įor fun, I’ve gone ahead and ranked the many films that have tried to replicate Dahl’s wit and charm on the page. Diving into the worlds of Matilda or Charlie or James (or George, from George’s Marvellous Medicine, which my third grade class adapted into a play with yours truly in the titular role) was to enter a world where the wonder of childhood was the greatest antidote to the cruelty and capriciousness of adults. The book is terrifying all on its own given its premise, but it was the language which made me enjoy it all the more, opening up worlds I didn’t know were possible: “A real witch gets the same pleasure from squelching a child as you get from eating a plateful of strawberries and thick cream.” It’s the word “squelch” for me that truly signals why Dahl’s prose was always so wickedly revolting-and I mean that in the greatest sense.
Take The Witches, which has just gotten yet another film adaptation. I can still trace my love of language to his wordplay-loving novels, many of which I devoured as a young precocious kid. It’s no surprise his books have proven fertile ground for both sublime cinematic gems and deliriously horrid film versions. I still have vivid memories of reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda in school (we even read his rather unsavory memoir Boy his accounts of boarding school bullying haunt me to this day!) and of watching the delightful early ’90s film adaptations of some of his better known works. Roald Dahl holds a special place in my childhood. Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.