Roald Dahl’s books have been published in 34 …Roald Dahl’s books have been published in 34 different languages. © Images: © ThinkStock The Dahl family went on summer holidays

Roald Dahl’s books have been published in 34 different languages.

www.teachingideas.co.ukImages: © ThinkStock©

The Dahl family went on summer holidays to Norway when Roald was young. His mother’s parents lived there and he loved fishing and exploring the islands.

In the evenings, Roald Dahl’s grandmother and aunts used to tell him scary stories about witches, giants and trolls.


Roald Dahl joined the Royal Air Force andhe learnt to fly in a‘Tiger Moth’ biplane.

Other pilots in the RAF used to callhim ‘Lofty’ becausehe was so tall!


His father died when Roald was only three. He was brought up by his mother in a village near to Cardiff in Wales.

Roald went to boarding school when was nine. He wrote long letters to his mum every week, signing them ‘Boy’.


At school, Roald and his friends sometimes tested chocolate bars for Cadbury’s!

Roald was rushed to an Egyptian hospital when his plane ran out of fuel while he was flying over the desert. His plane hit a rock and burst into flames.


10,000 copies of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ were printed at first. They all sold out in a month.

Roald also wrote film scripts. These included ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ and the James Bond film ‘You Only Live Twice’.


At first, publishers in Britain didn’t want to sell Roald Dahl’s books because they thought the stories were rude and violent!

Quentin Blake illustrated lots of Roald Dahl’s books, including ‘The Enormous Crocodile’, ‘The Twits’ and ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’.


In 1987, Roald Dahl was offered an OBE but he refused to accept it. He thought that he should be ‘Sir Roald Dahl’.

Roald hated bullies and his own birthday. He loved chocolate!


Roald’s first published children’s book was called ‘The Gremlins’. The RAF pilots blamed elves, called Gremlins, when there were problems with the planes!

Roald won the Whitbread Prize for ‘The Witches’ in 1983. He gave the £3000 prize money to a hospice for dying children.


He used to write six or seven days a week from 10am until lunchtime and then from 4pm to 6pm.

Roald wrote in a shed at the bottom of his garden at Gypsy House. His stories could take between six months and a year to write.


‘The Vicar of Nibbleswick’ and‘The Minpins’ were Roald’s last stories and they were published after he died in 1990.


Roald Dahl’s books have been published in 34 …Roald Dahl’s books have been published in 34 different languages. © Images: © ThinkStock The Dahl family went on summer holidays

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