Boy: Tales of Childhood

by Roald Dahl

Quentin Blake (Illustrator)

Find out where the bestselling author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG got all his wonderful story ideas in this autobiographical account of his childhood! 

From his own life, of course! As full of excitement and the unexpected as his world-famous, best-selling books, Roald Dahl's tales of his own childhood are completely fascinating and fiendishly funny. Did you know that Roald Dahl nearly lost his nose in a car accident? Or that he was once a chocolate candy tester for Cadbury's? Have you heard about his involvement in the Great Mouse Plot of 1924? If not, you don’t yet know all there is to know about Roald Dahl. Sure to captivate and delight you, the boyhood antics of this master storyteller are not to be missed!

• ISBN10: 014241381X
• ISBN13: 9780142413814
• Publish Date: 22 January 2009 (first published 25 October 1984)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Format: Paperback (US Digest)
• Pages: 192
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780142413814

Reviews

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

First Impressions
Boy is one of the few Roald Dahl books I did not read when I was younger and was looking forward to this new experience with a favorite childhood author.

Impressions While Reading
It was a riveting look at Roald Dahl's childhood in only the way he could

Impressions on Narration
It is Matthew Crawley! I could listen to Dan Stevens read the phonebook.

Final Impressions
I am so happy to have read Boy and am only sad that I didn't read it in my childhood as it is a masterful look at youth with writing down to kids. I look forward to reading Going Solo, a novel of Roald Dahl's adulthood.

[daltonlp]

She had received two full half-hour lessons in driving from the man who delivered the car, and in that enlightened year of 1925 this was considered quite sufficient. Nobody had to take a driving-test. You were your own judge of competence, and as soon as you felt you were ready to go, off you jolly well went.

As we all climbed into the car, our excitement was so intense we could hardly bear it.

'How fast will it go?' we cried out. 'Will it do fifty miles an hour?'

'It'll do sixty!' the sister answered. Her tone was so confident and cocky it should have scared us to death, but it didn't.

'Oh, let's make it do sixty!' we shouted. 'Will you promise to take us up to sixty?'

'We shall probably go faster than that,' the sister answered, pulling on her driving-gloves and tying a scarf over her head in the approved driving-fashion of the period.