Product Description

This is the remarkable story of Roald Dahl's early years at school and with his family.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3360 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Review
"Throughout my young days at school and just afterwards a number of things happened to me that I have never forgotten. . . . Some are funny. Some are painful. Some are unpleasant. I suppose that is why I have always remembered them so vividly." Vividly indeed: with the intimate, confiding tone of a born storyteller, Dahl turns each of his family/school memories into a miniature adventure, thriller, or horror-story - with the earthy emphasis on pleasure (food, comradeship), fear, and pain. After a brief, charming slice of family-history, explaining how his Norwegian parents came to live and prosper in Wales, Dahl gets right down to business. From the years at Llandaff Cathedral School (ages 7-9, 1923-25), there's a candy-by-candy tribute to the local sweet-shop, site of "The Great Mouse Plot": Roald and friends, fed up with the meanness of filthy sweet-shop-owner Mrs. Pratchett, secretly put a dead mouse in the Gobstopper jar - but suffered mightily for their glorious prank. (Mrs. P. reported the crime to the Headmaster - unleashing the first of many school-career canings, all described in gruesome, technicolor detail.) Summer vacations in Norway are also recalled in a mixture of ecstasy - the fish, the scenery - and agony: an operation for adenoid removal without any anesthetic. And the extremes of pleasure and pain continue through Dahl's years at two English boarding schools: homesickness, sadistic Matrons and Masters, practical jokes, the indignities of "fagging" (warming up the toilet-seat for older boys), chocolates. . . and, always, the dreaded Headmaster's cane. ("By now I am sure you will be wondering why I lay so much emphasis upon school beatings in these pages. The answer is that. . . I couldn't get over it. I never have got over it.") Some readers may be put off by Dahl's style here - chatty, bedtime-story-ish, deceptively avuncular. Others might not take to the British references (no special explanations for a US audience), or the particularly British approach - full of bitter humor and odd relish - to grisly, gory matters. But those who've appreciated Dahl in various forms will find both the master of chills and the lover of chocolate here - in a fine, juicy collage of funny/awful boyhood highlights. (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
This is the remarkable story of Roald Dahl's early years at school and with his family.

About the Author
Roald Dahl, the best-loved of children's writers, was born in Wales of Norwegian parents. After school in England he went to work for Shell in Africa. He began to write after "a monumental bash on the head", sustained as an RAF pilot in World War II. Roald Dahl died in 1990.

Customer Reviews

Boy it's good
`Boy' is about Roald Dahl's childhood and it is as good as Matilda, BFG and the Twits. It's very imaginative and true an awfully strange pair. You can imagine bits of it like when they got caned for putting a dead mouse in the Sweet Shop lady's sweets, Roald Dahl went to a boarding school for boys as his secondary school and he went to a Catholic primary school. Roald Dahl wrote another book about his past but as a pilot of a fighter plane for the RAF in the Second World War, but that is another story which I have also reviews called `Going Solo'. I have to say this is one of my favourite books of all time. I would rate it 1000000000/10. I think anyone and everyone would enjoy is and some people might have met his before he died in 1990. A must read book!

the wonderful story of boy
"boy" by roald dahl is a truely wonderfully written book. the book reads more like a story than a biography but it still gives you an insight into the amazing imagination of roald dahl.i have been a fan of roald dahl since my childhood but this book and its companion biography "going solo" are my two favorite books by this magnificent author. i would highly recommend this book

The Boy by Roald Dahl
Lots of people know Roald Dahl by his fantastic books of Charlie and the chocolate factory or James and the giant peach. If wanted to find information about his early life, this book would be the place to look.
The Boy is sort of an early childhood autobiography. He says this isn’t a biography but really it is. The story is told in time order. For example a story about Roald’s Dad is told before Roald Dahl being born. If you enjoy short true stories then this is the book to read.
The piece of text is in sections Starting Point, Llandaff Cathedral School, St Peter’s and Repton and Shell. The sections are then put into stories. For example The Great Mouse Plot or the First Day. It also tells us the years it happened like St Peter’s; 1925-1929 (age 9-13). There are a lot of real life photos of Roald Dahl and his family. There are also he own drawing in there. For example there is some of Mrs Prachett. The stories in the book might be real or might be fictionalised. I just don’t know because this book wasn’t written at the time it was happening it was written about memories and these memories might be wrong. This book can tell you what schools were like at the 20s and 30s.
This piece of text has lots of stories so you don’t need to have a lot of time to read a whole story. You also need to be able to read different kinds of stories with cruelty in. You can read these stories to people because they are very entertaining. I don’t think you could make a play out of it like Peter Pan.
I read the text by myself. I told one story to my brothers and they really enjoyed it. I suppose you can only read this book if you know who Roald Dahl is. You don’t have to have read any of his books because it’s only about his childhood and not his career.
This book is really enjoyable and the stories he wrote in this book are brilliant. You find out memories of Roald’s childhood. If I had to write out a book about my childhood, it would never be as good as this book. Firstly because I haven’t even finished my childhood and secondly I haven’t had that many adventures.
The reason this book has been published is…………
1. Roald Dahl is a fabulous author and people will want to know about his childhood.
2. It has great Graphology
3. The audience can actually imagine what Roald Dahl looked like.
4. It has great stories which make you glue to the book.
5. It tells you about his family and friends.
Thanks for reading my first review. I hope I’ve encouraged you to read The Boy. Trust me if you don’t read this book you will miss out. Also if you’ve got a project about Roald Dahl this is the place to look.