Part 1: Harold Dahl

Harold Dahl was Roald Dahl's father. One occasion that affected Harold's entire life happened to occur when he was replacing loose tiles on the roof of his home and fell off. However the doctor who was called to the scene was drunk and mistook Harold's fractured elbow for a dislocated shoulder. He called several men who were walking by and told them to pull Harold's waist while he pulled Harold's arm. As a result Harold was forced to survive the challenges in life with only one arm. When Harold was young, he and his brother ran away from home. Their desired destination was Paris, the capital of France.

Upon arriving in Paris they split up. Harold met a young Norwegian named Aadnesen. The pair formed a partnership and decided to go into the shipbroking business, in which they were very successful.

Harold got married and had several children one of which was Roald.

Part 2: Growing up

Roald was born in 1916 in Cardiff in Wales. After going to Repton School throughout his childhood he went to Africa to seek his fortune. It was here that he got a job for the Shell Oil Company for two years. When the war between Britain and Germany erupted Roald joined the Royal Nairobi Air Force as a pilot. Unluckily he had a serious crash in the desert and got a limp for life. Then he was sent to America as a spy. Here he wrote a book about being a pilot. After that he wrote The Gremlins. Walt Disney loved it and invited Roald to Hollywood so that it could be made into a film. The film was never finished but Roald's writing career had begun.

Part 3: Roald the Author.

During his time as an author Roald wrote many books for children. He is very funny and sometimes rude. He has written Boy and Going Solo about his childhood. His stories usually have good guys and bad guy's: children good, adults bad. But the good always end up punishing the bad. Roald Dahl wrote 18 Books in his career. Here is a list of some of the books he wrote:

• The Gremlins
• Matilda
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• George's Marvoulas medicine
• Fantastic Mr Fox
• The B.F.G.
• The Witches
• The Magic Finger
• James and the Giant Peach
• Boy
• Going Solo
• The Twits
• Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
• Danny The Champion of the World
• The giraffe the Pelly and Me
• Dirty Beasts
• Revolting Rhymes
• The Enormous Crocodile

Matilda and James and the Giant Peach were made into films.

Part 4: Terrible Times

From 1960-1965 three terrible things happened in the Dahl family.

First of all, when Theo was a baby a New York Taxi hit his pram.

Theo suffered serious brain damage, immediately Roald set to work with a doctor and an aeroplane modeller and together they invented a gadget called the Wade-Dahl-Till valve to help children like Theo. Luckily Theo was able to get better by himself, but the valve saved thousands of other children's lives.

The second terrible thing was Olivia's, Olivia died of a rare kind of measles.

Thirdly to make matters worse Patricia (Roald's wife, who had been a famous American actress) had a dangerous illness called a stroke. Roald organised teams consisting of neighbours and friends to talk and play games with her to help her recover. Two years later she was able to start filming again.

Part 5: Book Review on Matilda

Matilda is a funny book for children 5 years of age and upwards. It is about a little girl who discovers that she has magic powers and helps her teacher seek revenge on the school principal. I would give Matilda 9 out of 10.

Boy. By Roald Dahl.

Roald Dahl. By Chris Powling.