Boy: Tales of Childhood

I thought this was his autobiography and it is I finally know how he got his ideas.

even though he is gushing about his (and my) Norwegian ancestry. He is funny, irreverent, and understands children so well.

This book was interesting and healed my attention quite well. it is not the most interesting book ever, but it was very funny. The great mouse plot was very funny and he was quite a trouble maker. I would recommend this book to anyone who would like a funny, easy read.

I have never read any of Roald Dahl's children's stories, but have always wanted to. His first memoir, BOY, is a very slight volume, less than 200 pages, but it is full of perhaps the most delightful and whimsical vignettes of childhood ever penned. While it is true there are some very shocking references to beatings and "canings" which were apparently quite common in English public schools, administered by both the masters and the older boys, the overall tone of the book is one of wonder and fond reminiscing. This is particularly true when Dahl talks of his home life, which was obviously a very loving albeit often unsupervised time, when boys could just be boys. Dahl's father, a very successful businessman, died when Roald was very young, but his mother, a Norwegian immigrant, kept her large blended family (6 children in all) very well, and stayed in Wales (then England) to raise them all, as her husband would have wanted her to. What I found most interesting in the book (although it was ALL absolutely wonderful) were the stories of young Roald's experiences at various boarding schools. These things happened back in the 20s, and yet many of these tales were so much like my own stories from one year in a Catholic seminary (a boarding school) that I was astounded. For example, when he explains "Prep," which was the same as what we called evening "study hall" at St Joe's in the late 50s."Every weekday evening the whole school would sit for one hour in the Main Hall, between six and seven o'clock, to do Prep. The Master on duty for the week would be in charge of Prep, which meant that he sat high up on a dais at the top end of the hall and kept order ... The rules of Prep were simple but strict. You were forbidden to look up from your work, and you were forbidden to talk ..."This simple descriptive passage took me immediatley back to St Joe's Seminary in Grand Rapids when I was just 13 or so, and sat at my study hall desk right next to my friend Tom Cassleman. We often skirted these strict rules by raising the tops of our desks, ostensibly to get a book or pen, so we could whisper to each other or pass notes, smirking and huffing silently to each other, immensely pleased with ourselves at fooling the priest "master" up on the dais in the center of the hall. Ah, yes, Mr Dahl got it right, even though he himself was a fearful little boy of only nine in his tale, which took place in an English school over thirty years before. I could relate, as could any St Joe's student from those years in the 1950s. As for the canings, they were gone by the 50s in American schools, but we could be sent to see the dreaded Dean of Discipline, Fr Leo, if we were caught for any infractions of the rules. And I did hear rumors of a certain perhaps predatory short Monsignor who invited the smaller boys into his rooms to "counsel" them. Thankfully, since I was already over six feet tall, I never got the call. Another passage in Dahl's story which I immediately felt a kinship with was the one where he talked of the propensity of doctors and dentists in his day who never bothered with anesthetic when operating on children."Pain was something we were expected to endure. Anaesthetics and pain-killing injections were not much used in those days. Dentists, in particular, never bothered with them ..."Yup, I had an old-school dentist, even in the 50s, who didn't believe in "wasting" novocaine on kids. The prevailing theory was that kids didn't really feel pain. I remember crying every time I got a filling, and I got a lot of them back in those pre-fluoride days. Dr Brown would frown and tell me to "stop being such a baby." Bastard! Once again, Dahl understood and got it right. If it isn't obvious yet, I loved this book. On to its sequel now, GOING SOLO. Watch for my review of that soon. - Tim Bazzett, author of the Reed City Boy trilogy.

I have never read a Roal Dahl book I did not like. This one is no exception.I didn’t know he had any autobiographical work. For someone who likes his books as much as I do, you’d think I would know better, and probably consumed everything he published. Well, this turned out to be a pleasant surprise.The book, Boy, did. Plus it inspired me to try and finish reading those Dahl titles I am yet to read.Like his fiction for children, Boy is typical Roal Dahl. Forever witty and humorous although there are some, what I will call shockers here, that are no laughing matter.To avoid providing any spoilers I am not going to go into detail what they are. Instead I will take the approach Dahl did in his introduction by saying the bio is not all fun and laughs, which is fitting. Life is never like that, so there are ups and downs in this story that highlight this point.Notwithstanding, Boy ends with the typical uplift this author’s works are known for. Furthermore, I have already said that it also inspired me to get more of his titles I am yet to read.If you are a Roal Dahl fan, I highly recommend adding Boy to the list of his books you’ve read. If you do, you will see or get a hint into where and how the man developed into the person who later spent his life writing the wonderful children’s books he left for generations to enjoy.

Felt like I was in grade school library again reading this with my 11 year old. It's a good bizarre intro to expanding horizons of other cultures during different era's to this age group. Really fun to get him into the story to forget about the actual reading. We took turns reading after videogames and before bed so he didn't get burnt out and did a few chapters each night. His writing and reading grades went up and that was his goal . B to A-

I bought this for my daughter for her school class and she loved it

Roald went to a Welsh school for kindergarten. The teacher beat him with a cane. His mother then sent him to different English schools thinking they were the best schools in the world. But sadly, in every school he went to he was beaten with a cane either by teachers, headmasters, or boys with the title Boazer(Prefect). When Roald was a teen he was a star athlete. That usually would have made him a Boazer. But the administrators would not make him a Boazer since they knew he would not use a cane to beat younger boys. I think this was a horrible way of life in the schools back in the 1920s and 1930s. It was widespread. Many of the teachers and staff were cruel. Sometimes innocent boys were accused of things just to be able to punish them. To be caned, the boy had to pull his pants down. One Boazer was admired for his caning ability. He would hit the boy in the same spot repeatedly and often draw blood. The victim was required to stand with his pants down for several minutes while other boys would closely examine the caning bruises in minute detail. Of course his privates were also on display for all to examine.There were other stories that were interesting and did not make me as mad as the above.This is nonfiction - 25 short essays about events in the author’s life from age 6 to age 20.DATA:Narrative mode: 1st person. Story length: 172 pages. Swearing language: none. Sexual content: none. Setting: mostly 1920s and 1930s Wales & England. Copyright: 1984. Genre: aubiography, memoirs.