I decided to start with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and it was just as good as I remembered. Having grown up in Birmingham which has it's own chocolate factory, this was always a book that meant a lot to me.
Roald Dahl tells the story of the five children who win the Golden Tickets which will admit them to Mr Willy Wonka's fabulous chocolate factory. One of these children is Charlie Bucket and as Dahl explains, he is the hero of this fantastic tale.
As the children explore the factory and meet Mr Wonka's helpers, the Oompa-Loompas, four of them have quite nasty (and well deserved) accidents. You don't feel very sorry for them as Roald Dahl has gone to great lengths to explain how thoroughly unpleasant each one is. That is apart from Charlie who is the only child left at the end of the day. I love it when Mr Wonka explains that he is giving him and his family the factory as you know more than anything that merely visiting for the day was beyond Charlie's wildest dreams so owning it is beyond belief.What struck me, reading this book as an adult is Roald Dahl's extraordinary use of language. He created some brilliant words which conjure up all kinds of things in the reader's imagination; I really do think he was a genius of children's literature.
I know that I am really going to enjoy re-reading these books. Do you have a favourite Roald Dahl book or character?
