Roald Dahl wrote 17 children’s novels and 20 books for children. In total he has published 48 books (not including published screenplays and plays). This total does include treasuries and collected works and books published after his death.
Roald Dahl's books are modern fairy tales. Plots of his books are really unique and different from traditional fairy tales.
One of his works is 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and its continuation 'Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator'. The main character of the books is a boy whose name is Charlie Bucket. He lived in poverty with his mother, father and 4 grandparents. He liked chocolate a lot. Once he with five more children Augustus Gloop , Violet Beauregarde, Veruca Salt and Mike Teavee won a gold ticket together . The tickets were released by
Willy Wonka, the owner of the chocolate factory, who decided to let children visit his factory. So Charlie and his Grandpa Joe went to the factory. There was a room made of edible things and a chocolate river flowing there. Little people called Oompa-Loompas ran the factory. One of the children Augustus Gloop fell into the chocolate river while trying to drink from it, Violet Beauregarde ate some magic gum that turned her into a blueberry, Veruca Salt tried to steal a worker squirrel and ended up down a garbage chute, and Mike Teavee shrunk when he tried to send himself through television. Only Charlie was able to stay a good boy. Mr. Wonka offered his factory to Charlie.
In the second part 'Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator' all the Buckets and Mr. Wonka went into the space in the elevator. The USA launched the first world 'Space International Hotel' into the space. Mr. Wonka wanted to visit the hotel. Tree pilots Chaster, Chooler and Chooster and all service staff were on their way from Earth to the hotel. Mr. Wonka, Charlie, his mother, father and 4 grandparents saw some aliens in the hotel. The aliens wanted to catch them, but made a mistake and chaised the wrong ship (with service staff). The aliens broke the engine of the tree pilot’s ship. Mr. Wonka saved them. The president of USA watched the events from the Earth. When the elevator with the passengers came down back to Earth, they all were invited to the White House. Even the grandparents got out of their bed!
Willy Wonka, the owner of the factory, is a very strange man. He lives alone, his father has a toothache, he quarrels with him. Wonka is short, he wears a black long jacket and invents non-chocolate.
Charlie lives in a poor house with his parents, two grandmothers and two grandtathers He is very fond of chocolate but can not get it often because the family is poor, he gets it only for his birthday. When Wonka invites him to the factory, he's the only one who passes all the obstacles. So he's clever.
Roald Dahl wrote some of his stories about animals. One of this stories is called 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'. Mr. Fox lived with his wife and four little foxes. In order to feed his family, he stole food from the cruel farmers named Boggis, Bunce and Bean every night. Finally, tired Mr. Fox, the farmers attempted to capture and kill him. The foxes escaped in time by burrowing deep into the ground. The farmers decided to wait outside the hole for the foxes to come out. Mr. Fox and his family began to starve because they had no food. Mr. Fox decides to steal food from the farmers by tunneling into the ground and borrowing into the farmers' houses. Some friendly Badger helped them and they brought the stolen food to the barrow. Mrs. Fox prepared a great celebratory banquet attended by the other starving animals and their families. Mr. Fox invited all the animals to live with him underground. He said that he would provide food for them daily thanks to his underground passages. All the animals lived happily and safely. The farmers remained waiting outside in vain for Mr. Fox to show up.
The next story is 'The Witches'. This book is about a boy's whose parents died in a car crash, so he went to live with his grandmother in Norway . She told him stories about witches, who have claws instead of finger nails, bald heads, large nose holes, square feet, and blue spit. The boy’s grandmother got sick and the two are forced to go to a hotel on the coast of England in order to improve her health.
While there, the boy found himself locked alone in a room with two hundred witches. He hid behind a screen in the room and hoped the witches would not find him. He overheard the witches’ wicked plan to turn children into mice by putting Delayed Action Mouse-Maker in chocolate bars in candy shops all around England. The witches demonstrated how it would work on a boy named Bruno and he was turned into a mouse. Then one of the witches smelled the boy behind the screen. The witches found him and the boy was unable to escape, he was turned into a mouse. After he became a mouse, he managed to escape their clutches.
He found Bruno and they both went on a quest to find the boy’s grandmother. After a dangerous journey to his grandmother’s room, the boy told her what happened. He still had his human voice. The boy came up with a plan to put Mouse-Maker into the witches’ food while they were still at the hotel and turn them all into mice. He sneaked into the Grand High Witch’s room and stole some Delayed Action Mouse-Maker. Then he went into the kitchen and dumped it into the witches’ soup. The witches all turned into mice and were chased out of the hotel. The grandmother gave Bruno back to his parents. The boy was left a mouse for the rest of his life, but decided that he would be happy with life as a mouse.
The boy and his grandmother went back home and dedicated their lives to ridding the world of witches.
Another story is “BFG”. The main character is Sophie, who was snatched from her orphanage early one morning by the B.F.G. (Big Friendly Giant), whom she witnessed engaged in mysterious activities, and whisked away to Giant Country. She was soon put at ease, as she learns that B.F.G.'s job is to collect, catalogue and deliver pleasant dreams to children. The BFG shows Sophie his collection of dreams. BFG protected her from other angry giants, because they wonted to eat her. Later, Sophie has an idea on how to beat the other giants. She has the BFG give the Queen of England a dream that shows the malevolent giants. This frightens the Queen and wakes her up, at which point Sophie explains that her dream was real. The Queen then vows to help the two.
With other countries' assistance, they construct a giant pit. With the BFG’s help, they trapped other giants. Giants didn't eat children since then, they had to eat snozzcumbers. At the end the BFG and Sophie live in a mansion, where Sophie is teaching the BFG how to read and write, and the BFG is actually writing the book.
Roald Dahl’s stories also talk about children's adventures like “Matilda”. The book is about a little girl whose name is Matilda. She lives with her family, Mr and Mrs Wormwood and their son. Mr. Wormwood owns a second-hand car garage and cheats people all day. At daytime Mrs. Wormwood spends almost the entire day at the bingo outside town. Matilda likes to read books. She spends her day sitting in the library reading.
When Matilda was five and a half years old she went to Crunchem Hall Primary School. The head teacher was called Miss Trunchbull. Matilda was in the class of Miss Jennifer Honey. Miss Honey was shocked that a little girl was so smart and could do sums. Miss Honey went to ask Miss Trunchbull if Matilda could move up some classes because she was so smart, but Miss Trunchbull said no.The following night Miss Honey goes to talk to Matilda’s parents. Miss Honey tried to convince Mr. Wormwood that Matilda was a genius, but he thought that Matilda was stupid.
Miss Trunchbull was very cruel at the school. She had once thrown a girl many metres by holding the girl’s pigtails. Matilda and her friend Lavender were shocked that Miss Trunchbull could get away with it. Matilda and Miss Honey went home to Miss Honey to talk about unusual powers matilda had. Matilda leaned that Miss Trunchbull is Miss Honey’s aunt and that Miss Honey owns Miss Trunchbull a lot of money. Miss Trunchbull used to be Miss Honey’s nanny, but when Miss Honey’s father died Miss Trunchbull became her guardian. Matilda found out that Miss Trunchbull’s name was Agata and Jenny’s fathers name was Magnus.
When Matilda got home, she started to practice to make things fly, with only using her eyes. She practiced for many hours and succeded.
The next day they were having their weekly test. Miss Trunchbull grabbed the boy’s ears and lifted him up in the air. It was that moment when Matilda started her plan. She made the chalk write on the blackboard:
'Agata, this is Magnus. And, you better believe it. Agata, give my Jenny back her house. Then get out of here. If you don’t, I will come and get you like you got me. I am watching you Agata.” Miss Trunchbull was so shocked that she fainted. No one ever saw Miss Trunchbull again. Miss Honey got her house and was happy. Matilda went to live with Miss Honey.
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Masha Seletskaya
Gleb Pavlenko
Matilda is a very smart girl. She is friendly, naive, very fond of reading. She likes books about knights. She can do some extaodinary things, like mooving objects. Her whole family does not pay attention to her. As for her Dad, he gets angry when he sees her with a book. he is not interested in developing her abilities. Matilda goes to a school, where the director is not just strickt. She is cruel towards all pupils of the school. She seems to hate children. And only Matilda is not afraid of her.
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