We Are Judging You BIG TIME If You Haven’t Read At Least One Of These Roald Dahl Books In Your Childhood

If Roald Dahl didn’t DOMINATE your childhood then we have a problem here.

Giving us some of the world’s most timeless and captivating stories, the bestselling children’s author is an all-time OG and these 5 books will quite literally whizz open the floodgates of nostalgia.

Ohhh the days when Roald Dahl had us all curled up in a corner of a room completely transported to another dimension…

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5. If  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a part of your childhood then you’ve probably grown up to become a mature, sensible and frugal adult. Plus, you’d know just how BIG of a MOOOOD Willy Wonka really is in lyf!

Promising review:

“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a story to be read again and again. It captures Dahl’s excellence in making a hero out of the least popular child around. This is a great tale to reinforce that wealth does not trump poverty and that good guys can finish first. Reading this book in secondary school helps students grasp the deeper meanings of themes, symbols and motifs that can be missed at first glance.”

Buy the paperback version from Amazon for AED 30.

4. You’re lying if you didn’t try to move things with your mind and develop your telekinesis powers just like Matilda almost every darn day as a 12-year-old adolescent.

Promising review:

“This book combines wickedly funny humour with wonder and poignancy. I read this to my 10 and 8-year-old. Dahl definitely pushes the limits of what is appropriate for children but manages to stay just barely on the right side of the line in my opinion, which is what makes this book so good. Underneath all the hysterics this is actually quite a mature and moving tale dealing with child abuse/neglect, bullying, corruption (and possibly even murder), friendship and the miraculous. I felt like the message of the book is that whatever supernatural forces there are in the world are on the side of the innocent child and against the grown-up bullies, meting out poetic justice in due time. If you think this is a good message for kids to hear then you should read this to your kids.”

Buy the hardcover from Amazon for AED 63.

3. If James and the Giant Peach didn’t leave you feeling peachy about life as a budding teen, then maybe the fun and quirkiness of this book is exactly you need to re-visit as an adult!

Promising review:

“Many of us are familiar with this story so I am going to comment on how I used it. My husband reads to our son at night. He has a short attention span but we want him to get longer books to build his comprehension. This book is great because it is engaging, but the short chapters make it easy to read only a small section each night. My son loves ‘peach book.’”

Buy the paperback version from Amazon for AED 25.

2. Kinda a sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator transported you to a world beyond the chocolate factory and its strange yet whimsical Oompa Loompas…

Promising review:

“Unlike Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, one of the good things is that you don’t have a movie reference point for this read. You’re going in mostly blind, which is good. You know Charlie, Grandpa Joe, Willy Wonka, and the Oompa Loompas and have the chance to get to know Charlie’s other grandparents a bit better and his parents get slightly more exposition… but let’s say that again… slightly.

This was a fun read as are most Dahl reads, but it falls short of the mark of his excellent work for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we get dizzying and amazing glimpses into more areas of the Chocolate Factory, but it’s glimpses. Very rarely do we really dig into new rooms fully and in that sense, at times the book felt rushed. There’s also a big chunk that takes place in space and in the Glass Elevator. It seems like these chapters serve mostly to show how amazing and indestructible the Elevator is rather than push forward most narratives.”

Buy the hardcover from Amazon for AED 70.66.

1. If the pure and the bong unconditional of love between Grandmother and Grandson in The Witches didn’t warm your heart throughout this read then sorry to say… the witches have gotten to you too!

Promising review:

“I first read this book when I was in the third grade, 25 years ago. I instantly decided then that it was my favorite book and I read and re-read it many times. I loved it. I recently took on a research project involving children’s and young adult stories and have a long reading list of Children’s stories to read – I put “The Witches” at the top of my list for nostalgia’s sake, not sure what to expect.

As an adult, I can report, that it is simply a magnificent story. I can see why I loved it so much as a child. Dahl never dismisses the reader (children) as being inept. Like the Grandmother in the story, Dahl knows children don’t require extreme coddling. He’s not timid about using fear to tell a great story.

Parent’s strive to create a safe world for their children. But that illusion is one that all parents must slowly deconstruct to prepare children for reality. Fairy tales are an integral part of that deconstruction. In fairy tales, monsters can exist in a way that allows children to face their fears and walk through those fears to the other side where strength, courage and confidence are found.

“The Witches” is a frightening, yet thrilling read for children. Dahl is a masterful storyteller and in “The Witches” he has weaved imagination, fear and courage into a fantastically fun story that has stood the test of time and remains refreshingly relevant for each generation.”

Buy the paperback version from Amazon for AED 23.45.