Things about Roald Dahl that were discussed this weekend with my kids:
1. He never let anyone in his writing hut so it never got cleaned and never got dusted. It was white with a yellow door and tiny. (Dreamy)
2. He had a chocolate bar every day (which is probably the secret to his success, I believe).
3. He probably was pretty rich. They wanted to know how rich. I said I didn’t know. They wanted to know if Roald Dahl had a battle with JK Rowling in riches, who would win. I said Ms. Rowling.
4. He wrote on American yellow legal pads which were sent from New York City and every week he’d have a bonfire and burn the papers that didn’t make it into the book.
5. No. I was not as rich as Roald Dahl.
6. He crashed his plane when he was in the Royal Air Force, hitting the sand at 75 mph.
7. He wrote for 3.5 hours a day. 10:30 to noon and 4-6. That’s it. But it was every day. Look at the beauty he created in a 3.5 hour workday.
8. He always had breakfast in bed (lucky guy).
9. No. I would not ever sell as many books and Roald Dahl.
10. The Gremlins was his first short story (my husband was excited when he heard that. Hey! I’ve seen that movie. I said, sadly no. Not that Gremlins, which is a creepy creepy show).
11. He has a cookbook, written/compiled by him and his wife the last year of his life which I want. I also want chocolate.
12. He made a magical world. “I really like his books,” one of my boys said. And I agreed.
We all agreed that we wanted to visit Roald Dahl’s house and his writing hut and his museum and we wanted to see Matilda the musical and we wanted to live in a world where we got to go to a chocolate factory and get revenge on mean adults and kids alike. We wanted to get magical worms that made peaches giant and we wanted to be entranced by Giants who were friendly and scary.
I have read most of Roald Dahl’s writing for kids but barely touched his stuff for adults. And in writing this post that should be whimsical and happy, but is really tired and slow, I have come to suddenly want to read everything he’s written. Maybe that will be my reading goal for 2015. Read all of Roald Dahl’s writing. And eat some lollies. And try to have more fun when I write.
As a family, we just finished Matilda and we’re starting on James and the Giant Peach. You can join us!
10.
Throwing Up Words 
I read many of his books out loud when my girls were growing up. We all LOVED him. I found out when he died when i went to the library once afternoon. I nearly wept at the counter.
I love this post. His work was a big part of every kids life, or should have been. I wonder what we could all do if we did whateveritwas for 3.5 hours a day.