Some Quotes by Roald Dahl

I found the following quotes by Roald Dahl at the following webstie:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/roald_dahl.html

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.

A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.

All Norwegian children learn to swim when they are very young because if you can't swim it is difficult to find a place to bathe.

All through my school life I was appalled by the fact that masters and senior boys were allowed quite literally to wound other boys, and sometimes very severely.

An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.

Did they preach one thing and practice another, these men of God?

Everyone has some sort of a boat in Norway. NObody sits around in front of the hotel. Nor does anyone sit on the beach.

Game-playing at school is always fun if you happen to be good at it, and it is hell if you are not. I was one of the lucky ones.

Homesickness is a bit like seasickness. You don't know how awful it is unti you get it, and when you do, it hits you right in the top of the stomach and you want to die.

Study Guide for Christina G, Rossetti

• published Sing-Song 10 years before Stevenson published A Child's Garden of Verses
• came from a famous family of writers and artist
• never married and never had children
• her two brothers tried to control her life
• Sing-Song
• only collection of verses
• from an adult point of view
• speaker mainly adult
• many included didactics
  
• love between a mother and child
• death
• nature, but not a child playing in nature
• fewer than 1/3 from child's point of view
• major themes
• love
• death
• parting
• realities of life
• 10 on death
• 4 on play
• Gender Issues
• stereotypical image of a boy being mischievous
  
• Arthur Hughes
• foremost children's illustrator
• worked together with verses and illustrations
• inherent part of verses' meaning
  

Lesson Plan for The BFG

I found this lesson plan at the following web site:
http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/novel13.html

I thought this was a very creative way to get a class involved in the novel that they are reading

The BFG

by Roald Dahl

Read this book aloud to your class.

1. Read one chapter at a time twice a day. Each chapter is very short and ends on a suspenseful note. Every day, before the first reading of the day, summarize what happened in the two chapters previously by asking the class. Record the major events by drawing a picture time line on chart paper.
2. The chapter titled "Dreams" is quite a long one, so before beginning to read, prepare the kids by telling them that the chapter is about the good dreams and nightmares that the BFG collected, and after reading the chapter we will do an activity about our own dreams. "So, while we are reading this chapter, think about the dreams that you have had."

3. After reading the reading this chapter ask your students to:
   • Draw a nightmare that they have had.
   • Draw a good dream that they have had.
   • Write down as many words as they can to describe these dreams, don't worry about the spellings.
   • Share the dreams with the class.
4. When the book is finished, split your class into groups of three or four and get each of the groups to decide which one bad giant they would like to draw (Fleshlumpeater, Bonecruncher, Manhugger, Childchewer, Meatdripper, Maidmasher, Bloodbottler, or Butcher Boy) , majority decides. Draw an outline about 10 ft. tall, and each group can work together to paint it in. Also draw a BFG outline that the whole class can fill in as they have spare time.
5. Display the giants.

study guide for lyrics

• Cecil Francis Alexander Irish woman who wrote hymns in the for of children's poetry
• William Blake-innocence in experience changed children's poetry
• illuminated works- process by which Blake could etch his poems and pictures into copper
• turned children's poetry into a complex work of art
• possible to read Blake's poetry as they appear on the page
• all but The Tyger are from the innocent side
• address many challenging social issues
• illustrations are an inherent part of the text; this lead to the beginning of picture books for children
• many have religious content
• most have a simple vocabulary, short phrases with simple syntax, use familiar imagery, and use repetition and refraim
• draws from the oral tradition; not all things in works are considered for children
• verbal ambiguity, covert satire, and sexual imagery are included in these
• African American poets
• more current authors
• Maya Angelu
• Gwendolyn Brooks
• Harlem Renaissance poets- time of flowering of "Negro Arts"
• Countee Cullen
• Langston Hughes
• Hughes-thought a black artist needed to represent or give a voice to the African American experience
• Cullen-thought a black artist needed to write about more universal ideas and experiences along with the African American experience
• didn't want to be called a "Negro poet"
• Incident-an expression of African American experience of an eight-year-old boy
• Mother to Son-a mother telling her boy about her experience being an African American
• life was hard in the slums
• crystal stair would be the white woman's' experience compared to the one of an African American
• Life Doesn't Frighten Me-universal expression of an urban area
• Hunchback Girl: She Thinks of Heaven-universal experience, tells about a girl who is handicapped; doesn't have to represent a girl or a handicapped person
• prayer
  

April 6, 1994

The following is a story I wrote when I was five:

Once upon a time, there was three little puppy dogs. They climbed some trees then they were looking for some squirrels for breakfast and worms. Then they saw a lizard snake and they saved it for supper. They ate it and they boiled it. Then they saved some for breakfast too, in the morning. Then they went to sleep.

The End

When I was younger, I would pretend that I was a dog. I think this is why the story is about "three little puppy dogs." Squirrels amused me when they would run and play in the trees. My dogs would always bark at them as they jumped from branch to branch. After it would rain, my brother and I would walk in the street and look for worms in the standing water along the curbs. I loved catching and playing with lizards; I would even wear them as earring. I am not sure what a lizard snake is, I may have been talking about an iguana.

Roald Dahl

The following information about Roald Dahl was taken from the following web site:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rdahl.htm

Dahl's stories have unexpected endings and strange, menacing atmospheres. The principle of "fair play" works in unconventional but unavoidable ways. Uncle Oswald, a seducer from 'The Visitor', gets seduced. In 'Parson's Pleasure' an antique dealer tastes his own medicine and the Twits from THE TWITS (1980) use glue to catch birds and meet their own gluey ends. In 'Lamb to the Slaughter' the evidence of a murder, a frozen leg of lamb, is eaten by officers who in vain search for the murder weapon. The story was inspired by a meeting with the writer Ian Fleming at a dinner party. Puns, word coinages, and neologism are more often used in the children's stories, whereas in adult fiction the emphasis is on imaginative plots. In addition to his children's books, Dahl also aroused much controversy with his politically incorrect opinions - he was accused of anti-Semitism and antifeminism and when a prowler managed to get into Queen Elizabeth's bedroom, Dahl was wrongly suspected of giving to the unwanted guest the whole idea in one of his books, The BFG (1982).

Study Guide for Nursery Rhymes

• Oral tradition
• No finite set
• Age unknown
• Peter and Iona Opie recorded rhymers over 200 years old
• Grow and change over time
• Mother Goose-uniquely English; came out of Britain
  
• 1744- 1st known collection of nursery rhymes; entitled Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book
  
• John Newberry attached Mother Goose
• 1765 he published Mother Goose's Melody
• took Mother Goose idea from Perault
  
• 1st poetry most children learn
• talk about everyday life issues
• have historical connections
• focuses on things senses can grasp
• children prefer humor or tell a story
• prefer strong rhythms and strong rhyme