I realise this is children's literature blasphemy so please don't look if you have a sensitive disposition but...

[OrmIrian]

....I am going to come clean and say that I really do not like Roald Dahl's books. I know that children love them and I'm sure they are an excellent excouragement to reading but I can't stand them. OK, they are meant for children not adults but there are plenty of fantastic authors who write for children without everything being a written version of a cartoon, or like the script for a panto. Every emotion has to be written large - sorry for large read HUUUUGEEE! Can't children do subtelty?

I guess I'm just pd off because I can see myself having to read the f Witches again for DC no3 in the nearish future and I really really don't want to ...

thanks!

lol at "can't children do subtlety?" in the op. erm, no, not really.

Really senora? How come children cope pretty well with books that aren't written in primary colours? How about Morpurgo and Aitken for example.

they are for older children than the ones Dahl is aiming at though aren't they?

older children like farce too of course, but so do some adults, including me.

I love them, but loads of my generation always used to pretend to like Roald Dahl books because it was easier than fessing up to hating reading. So loads of us have grown up unable to utter the Dahl Is A Load of Pants heresy...

Still, all that golden ticket stuff probably did a lot of the National Lottery's work in advance...

Ormirian - I have read LOTR out loud to DD1. It was a real revelation; I must have read it 30 or 40 times myself and not until I read it out loud did I realise HOW MANY thousands of words he devoted to describing landscape and terrain in mindnumbing detail, and how unutterably crap he was at dialogue. There is so much reported speech in there that just has a deadening effect on the pace of the book.
Still love it though!

rosa - I tend to agree. There were passages that I skipped when reading aloud. I could see DS's eyes glazing over. I love descriptive passages and the depiction of landscape having cut my teeth on the Victorians but aloud is another matter

DH has also read LOTR to DS1 - I take my hat off to those of you who have - I actually hate reading aloud - it makes me cough!

I am impressed at those of you who had done LOTR out loud. DH is taking forever to read DS the first Harry Potter. I loved Dahl as a child, but am less impressed as an adult.

dino - it makes me YAWN - great terrible jaw-cracking YAWNs - nothing else makes me yawn like that.

(Might be to do with forgetting to breathe while powering through a sentence, I suppose.)

DS1 is rather sweetly now re-reading them on his own (as well as being on his re-re-read of my poor battered old copy of Watership Down, which at this rate is never going to last long enough for DS2 to read!).

DS rereads the bits of Harry Potter that DH has read. I think it helps him absorb the story a bit more - he is only 6 after all.

Yes, bozza, that's exactly what my DS2 (also six) is doing now - DH reads it and then DS2 re-reads it, usually on the loo!

Ah my DS has a tendency to go to bed and get under the covers to read - whatever the time of day. I think it helps them get the story and also must help their reading skills, so all good I think.

i agree about his general treatment of women, Miss Honey (?) in Matilda is about the only favourable female character i can recall, and she was weedy to say the least.

agree in part about the black and white simplistic portrayal of life, but he was really just carrying on a great tradition in children's literature imho.

as an antidote to the saccharine political correctness that was all over children's books when i was growing up in the 80's and 90's, Roald Dahl was the perfect antidote. the context is totally different today what with yer Lemony Snickets and JK Rowlings and other such approximations.

Agree with Fennel about Lauren Child's version of Pippi Longstocking.

I bought it for dd but I find the illustrations a bit lazy.

Fed up with her style of drawings now and also find her style of writing annoying and badly written.

Agree with OP-can't understand all the fuss about Roald Dahl, especially dislike The BFG.

Love Quentin Blake's illustrations though.

yes, think I agree with you there ArcticRoll about Lauren Child's style being a bit lazy ! I like them but think...hmmmmbit of a cop out to draw youir standard Charlie and Lola type children and stick on a bit of collage !

Message withdrawn

hehe pruners

i'm an eldest too...

trouble is he doesn't seem to mind !

I'm the eldest child too !

Thanks for the reminder about Watership Down - have just got it from library for dd.

Have got Carl Hiaasen's Hoot for ds, plus something newish by Kjartan Poskitt (the Murderous Maths bloke) called Urgum the Axe Man. Will report on whether these are any good.

Started an Alan Garner for DS#1 last night. Weirdstone of Brimageenethingy. I read Garner as a child but don't remember this one. DS gripped so far.

(Whispers) I don't like Harry Potter. Bought a couple of the early books for my nephew who was 9/10 when they first came out, and he couldn't get into them at all. Dd1 (nearly 8) loves Roald Dahl!

The original Pippi Longstocking illustrations were so much nicer!
And One Hundred and One Dalmations has been re-illustrated too WHY??!!