On September 13, 1916, a baby named Roald Dahl was born in Cardiff, Wales, to Norwegian parents. They named him after a famous Norwegian explorer. His childhood was packed with the kinds of strange adventures that would later show up in his books: he attended a strict boarding school where the headmaster beat students, he tested chocolate bars sent from Cadbury, and during World War II he became a fighter pilot who crash-landed in the Libyan desert and survived.
Dahl started writing for adults but switched to children's books after telling bedtime stories to his own kids. He wrote in a small hut in his garden, sitting in an old armchair with a board across his lap, sharpening exactly six yellow pencils before each session. Out of that hut came James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG, Fantastic Mr Fox, and The Witches. He invented hundreds of made-up words, like scrumdiddlyumptious and frobscottle, which were later collected into a dictionary called Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary. He believed children were smarter and braver than grownups gave them credit for, and he hated bullies of every kind.
Dahl's books have now sold more than 300 million copies in 63 languages. Almost all of them have been turned into movies, plays, or musicals, including the famous Willy Wonka films, and the Matilda musical that played in London for over a decade. Every September 13 is Roald Dahl Day, when kids around the world dress as their favorite characters and read his stories aloud, often with a glass of frobscottle in hand.
