"A MESSAGE To Children Who Have Read This Book.
When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important: A stodgy parent is no fun at all!
What a child wants -and DESERVES- is a parent who is SPARKY!"
~Roald Dahl, from Danny, Champion of the World, 1975
When Nancy asked us to think about what book we remembered being most powerful in our childhood, I thought it would be nearly impossible to choose one. But as book titles and emotions raced through my head during the one minute given to think about this, Roald Dahl came up over and over again. Matilda, The Twits, The Witches... all of his books are fabulous for young readers because they speak to the wildly imaginative side, and also the side of a child that yearns to be treated like an adult and really heard by adults (after-all, just imagine what would have happened to the inventive and curious Boy and the gluttonous Bruno had the Boy's grandmother not listened to him seriously! I shudder to think!).
But even with all of Roald's titles, Danny was the book that kept coming to mind again and again. It's a tale of a little boy who lives with his widowed father and the grand adventure they have one dark night. It's exciting, mysterious, suspenseful and, oh! how I wanted to live in a gypsy caravan like Danny did! I also remember how Danny's father treated him like a friend and confidant when Danny finds out his father's secret. How amazing that an adult treated him like someone capable of holding such an important secret! I on't say the secret because young or old, you should definitely go read this book.
I did go out the next day to Barnes and Noble and I bought a copy for my future classroom. I am trying to little-by-little gather materials for the class I WILL be hired for come next summer (I hope-I hope-I hope), and I realized that this book needs to be on my shelf. It also led me to several websites about Roald Dahl with primary documents, lesson plans, ideas and other activities which I will certainly be looking into!
