My Favorite Children's Author...

I love to read. I have loved to read since I COULD read.

No matter where I go, anywhere in the world, I will be taking my books with me. Don't you dare try and make me get rid of a single one of them. I will b%#ch slap you into next week.

I love so many books, for so very many reasons. However, the books that have stuck with me from childhood and are still some of my favorites were written by one Roald Dahl. I still remember reading "The BFG" as a child and laughing my head off every time the title character went off speaking in his own silly way. I remember reading about Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory and wondering if--just maybe--I could someday find a golden ticket to take me inside of such an extraordinary place.

Every single one of Dahl's stories has an element of the twisted, even the macabre. "The BFG" is centered around bloodthirsty giants who snatch children and adults out of their beds at night and eat them like popcorn. "The Witches" focuses on wicked women whose entire purpose in life is destroy every child on the planet. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" sees children half drowning in chocolate rivers, carried off by super-intelligent squirrels, turned into blueberries and then juiced, and shrunk to tiny sizes and then stretched out again. As odd as it may seem, this element of twistedness is one of the reasons I LOVE Dahl's stories. He trusted his young readers. He believed that children could handle these slightly disturbing story elements, and he was right. Not only could children "handle" such things, they wanted to be a part of the story.

They wanted to accidentally end up locked in a room with every single witch in the country.

They wanted to be snatched out of their window in the witching hour by a BFG.

They wanted to be there, because in every single Dahl children's book, the child is the hero. Always. In "James and the Giant Peach", the title character is a seven-year-old boy. During his incredible journey on a giant peach with a bunch of giant insects HE'S the one calling the shots. They all look to him as their leader, their captain. And he leads them all successfully through danger and difficulty to a new life filled with opportunity. In "Matilda" (probably my very favorite of Dahl's stories) the title character is a six-year-old girl with beyond-genius-level intelligence. Not only that, but she's clever enough and brave enough to find ways to punish the wicked adults in her life, outsmarting and outmaneuvering them all. Eventually it is this tiny girl who saves her beloved teacher, Miss Honey, from the evil clutches of the Trunchbull.

Do you see now why I love Dahl's work so much? These stories are fun. They are creative. With every book, a whole new world is created, and every one of those worlds has an element of magic and wonder, and yet it's just believable enough to--just maybe--be real. And in these magical worlds, ordinary children are led by extraordinary means to do incredible things.

Roald Dahl never underestimated children. He saw their abilities, their potential. I firmly believe that adults look at kids and overlook all of the things that they are truly capable of far too often. Dahl never did. He knew they could handle little kernels of the dark and twisted. He believed in magic, and helped them to believe in it too. He made kids the heroes and heroines of his books, because he believed in them. What a vote of confidence to give his young audience. That, I believe, is why his stories are so well loved by so many.

I, for one, fully intend to raise my kids with these stories. I want them to believe in themselves. I want them to believe in magic. I can think of no better way to encourage these beliefs than to make sure that they are familiar with the worlds created by Roald Dahl.