Celebrate National Peach Month with Roald Dahl
July is National Peach Month! Which means we must talk about beloved British children’s author Roald Dahl. Why?
Because: James and the Giant Peach.
But first some trivia about Roald Dahl:
His parents were Norwegian immigrants. Roald was named after Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.
He was born in Wales but received most of his formal education in England. One of his childhood antics, for which he was severely disciplined, involved hiding a dead mouse in a jar of gobstoppers at a local sweet shop. Remember the Everlasting Gobstoppers from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? You can read about his childhood exploits in his first autobiography, Boy.
In World War II, he served with the British Royal Air Force (RAF) starting in November 1939. It’s been confirmed that he shot down five enemy planes, which qualifies him as a “flying ace.” He served for several years, until health problems in the latter half of 1941—most likely due to injuries he sustained in a crash in 1940—forced him to withdraw from active duty. His first children’s book, The Gremlins, is loosely based on his experience as a fighter pilot, but he wrote about his military experience in more detail in his second autobiography, Going Solo.
He took up a diplomatic post at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. and worked with British luminaries C.S. Forester (author of the Horatio Hornblower books), David Ogilvy (of the famed London advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather), and Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond). His assignment was to help influence American policy in favor of Britain and thereby assist Britain’s war effort. Eventually Dahl was schmoozing with D.C. elites and providing intelligence to Winston Churchill and MI6. In other words, he was a British spy!
After the war, Dahl stayed in America and married actress Patricia Neal. They had five children.
During his four years in Washington, D.C., Dahl began writing. His first piece was a non-fiction account of the crash-landing in which he was injured. (“Shot Down Over Libya,” Saturday Evening Post, 8/1/42.) Some artistic license was taken, as Dahl actually crash-landed due to a mix-up in navigational instructions during a non-combat flight, not because he was shot down. Nevertheless, in the piece Dahl proved himself a capable writer. He continued to write short fiction for adult readers in magazines like The New Yorker, Harper’s, Ladies’ Home Journal, and Collier’s. Little known fact: He wrote the screenplays for the movie adaptations of two Ian Fleming novels, You Only Live Twice and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Yes, Ian Fleming wrote for children as well as grown-up devotees of spy novels!)
But of course, Dahl’s books for children are his main legacy. My favorites are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Fantastic Mr. Fox…and my very favorite, James and the Giant Peach. Other notable titles include Matilda, The BFG, and Danny, the Champion of the World.
Worth noting: As of 2023, new editions of Dahl’s books (his books for children and his autobiographies) are being edited (some would say “censored”) by “sensitivity readers.” Currently, this applies only to the UK editions published by Puffin. Editions published in America will contain no revisions. See this article for more information: “Road Dahl: The fierce debate over rewriting children’s classics.” (May 30, 2023 by Neil Armstrong at BBC.com)
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