Facts About Roald Dahl Books

At Kids Book Zone we have produced several posts full of information about Roald Dahl, giving facts about his life and writing habits, but we have not yet focused on his books and his marvellous charcaters. Where, for instance, did the idea for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory come from? What inspired Roald Dahl to write about James and the Giant Peach? Where did Roald Dahl get his names from? All these questions (and lots more) will hopefully be answered below.

• Roald Dahl had started a third Charlie Bucket book, Charlie and the White House. Unfortunately he diead before finishing it. He was also planning to write a book about a girl who could communictae with her dog.
• It took Roald Dahl about one year to write each of his children's books.
• Roald Dahl used to test out his story ideas on his own children as bedtime stories.
• When Roald Dahl's nephew Nicholas first read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory he thought it was boring. After hearing this, Roald Dahl made some changes to his story!
• You never get to find out the names of the main characters in The Witches or The Magic Finger.
• When he was younger, Roald Dahl loved reading comics.
• Roald Dahl followed a rigid daily timetable. He would always eat breafast in bed and open his post. After that he would work at his books in his writing hut from 10:30 - 12:00, and again from 16:00 to 18:00.
• Roald Dahl never cleaned his writing hut. It became full of dust and spiderwebs.
• Esio Trot spells tortoise backwards.
• Roald Dahl was good friends with the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming.
• Rolad Dahl made up 283 new words. Some of them appeared in The BFG, but not all of them made it.
• Roald Dahl's first children's book was called The Gremlins.
• Roald Dahl had an ideas book. He used to jot down all of his interesting thoughts in this book.
• Ernest Hemingway and Roald Dahl were good friends.
• James and the Giant Peach was nearly named James and the Giant Cherry. It was decided that a peach would be more juicy.
• The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl was first called The Almost Ducks.
• He used to plan the opening sentences to his book very carefully, often rewriting them over and over again until he was happy with them.
• Roald Dahl kept a diary in a lunchbox that was always locked and hidden.
• Roald Dahl often based his charcaters on people he had met, but he never revealed their identity.
• Roald Dahl thought that writing for really young children was hard.
• Roald Dahl used a homemade writing board. He rested it on his lap in his writing hut, and wrote most of his most well-known books upon it.

More Roald Dahl Facts

Here are some more interesting facts about Roald Dahl, the amazing author of many fantastic children's books. This information about Roald Dahl has been taken from numerous sources and I hope you will find it both interesting and helpful. Roald Dahl is often studied in schools as the subject of an author project or biography. Here is all of the Roald Dahl information you are ever going to need!

These Roald Dahl facts are in no particular order. They contain information about his books, his background, his approach to writing and his interests.

• Roald Dahl wrote his books in garden shed with his feet resting on a suitcase, a blanket draped over his legs and a board on his lap which he used to lean on when writing.
• On his desk Roald Dahl kept many objects, including: a sliver ball (made from chocolate wrappers), a carved grasshopper and a model of a fighter plane.
• Rolad Dahl's father was called Harald Dahl and he used to enjoy walks in the country.
• Roald Dahl's father was Norwegian, but worked in Wales as a shipbroker.
• Roald Dahl was born on 13th September, 1916 in Llandaff, Cardiff.
• As a boy, Roald Dahl loved to collect bird's eggs.
• Roald Dahl went to boarding school when he was 9 years old.
• Roald Dahl was really tall and he was excellent at sports.
• He was not very good at English!
• Cadbury's used to send chocolate bars to be tested by the pupils at Roald Dahl's school.
• Roald Dahl accepted a job with the Shell Oil Company, and in 1938 he was sent to the east coast of Africa.
• Rolad Dahl joined the Royal Airforce in 1939. He trained to be a pilot and gained the nickname Lofty.
• He crashed his plane over Egypt in 1940 and nearly died.
• In 1941 Roald Dahl was sent to Washing DC in the United States as a diplomat.
• Rolad Dahl was recruited as a spy.
• In 1943 Roald Dahl wrote his first children's story, The Gremlins. Somehow Walt Disney got hold of the tale and Dahl was sent to Hollywood. Disney published the story, but no movie of it was made.
• At the end of the war Dahl returned to England. He made a living by buying antiques and paintings for clients in USA.
• In the 1940s, Roald Dahl wrote horror stories.
• Roald Dahl married the famous Hollywood actress, Patricia Neal. They rented an appartment in New York.
• Theo Dahl (Roald Dahl's son) was injured in 1960 aged just four months. His pram was hit by a taxi. He made a full recovery.
• Roald Dahl used to take a long time to finish writing his books.
• Dahl's daughter Olivia died at age seven after catching measles.
• Sophie Dahl, Rolad Dahl's granddaughter is a famous model and author.
• Rolad Dahl died on 23rd November 1990, aged seventy four. He always considered November to be an unlucky month for him.
• Roald Dahl formed a brillinat partnership with the illustrator Quentin Blake. Blake drew the pictures for several classic Dahl children's books: The Enormous Corocodile, The Twits, George's Marvellous Medicine and the BFG.
• Roald Dahl wrote his books in pencil - he sharpened six before he started his writing day.
• He used to write on a yellow pad of paper.
• Roald Dahl was over 2 metres tall.
• Roald Dahl his is diaries so well that they've never been found.
• One of Rolad Dahl's favourite sweets were wine gums.
• Roald Dahl has his own snooker table. He loved to play sports.
• His house was called Gipsy House.
• Roald Dahl strated to write a third story about Charlie Bucket, but he only managed to write the beginning.
• Roald Dahl hated cats, but he loved almost all other animals.
• Roald Dahl loved the smell of bacon frying in a pan.
• He hated beards and never grew one.
• It took Roald Dahl about a year to write each of his books for children. He didn't like to rush.