Edited by Donald Sturrock
Love From Boy: Roald Dahl’s Letters To His Mother
Published by Blue Rider Press
Sep 30, 2016 Web Exclusive
Roald Dahl, author of such loved children’s books as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG, and James and the Giant Peach, among many others, would have turned 100 years old on September 13. Coinciding with this date, Blue Rider Press has published Love From Boy, a collection of Dahl’s letters to his mother, Sofie Magdalene, edited by Dahl’s biographer Donald Sturrock.
The letters transcribed here were written over a 40-year period beginning in 1925 when Dahl was nine years old and sent to boarding school. His mother kept all of her son’s letters, more than 600 in total; it is a small miracle that they have survived all these years.
Sturrock collects Dahl’s letters, presented chronologically and with accompanying biographical information for context. The letters alone present something of a selective autobiography. Dahl relates to his mother his time at boarding school and his period in the Royal Air Force, flying planes in World War II. The infamous crash where he nearly lost his life is documented, as is his finally leaving the Air Force and becoming a writer, hobnobbing with presidents and actresses in the States.
It is interesting to read Dahl documenting his time in his own words. His early letters betray a sense of imagination and style that would crop up in his later children’s book writing. And his humor-Dahl is one for a dirty joke-is palpable throughout.
Love From Boy is a unique tribute to and document of a beloved writer, the likes of who may never be seen again. It’s a glimpse into the boy, the young adult, and the man who gave the world such wondrous stories.
(www.blueriderpress.com) (www.roalddahl.com)
Author rating: 7.5/10
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