If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.
– Roald Dahl
In our weekly Intrepid English Reading Club we’re looking at the short stories written by Roald Dahl.
For those of you that don’t know, Roald Dahl is an incredibly famous British children’s author. He was born in 1916 and sadly died in 1990 but despite being no longer with us for 35 years, his books are still some of the most popular English children’s books.
There aren’t many homes in the UK that don’t have at least one of his books. His titles include Mathilda, Charlie and the Chocolate factory, James and the Giant Peach, the BFG, the Witches and Fantastic Mr Fox. In fact all of the titles of these books have been made into huge films.
Why is Roald Dahl so popular?
The reason why his books are so popular with adults as well as children is he didn’t write simply for children. He wrote for adults reading the books to children, so his books are not only incredibly imaginative and inventive, but also darkly comical and scary at the same time. They are filled with beautiful vocabulary that are in fact sometimes words he invented himself.
He wanted to encourage children to read and so he created words that were often the start of words children knew but then he blended or changed the endings of the words to create something new and funny. He played with sounds and so his words are often understood better when read aloud.
Why is it useful to read to learn English?
This is why I have introduced Roald Dahl’s short stories to our Reading Club. Our group not only find the stories interesting but also they start to see how language works from his clever writing. Roald Dahl teaches us so much but always in a playful way. You can learn about similes, onomatopoeia and other useful writing tools simply from reading his books and learning what this brilliant author has to teach you.
Since it is a reading club, everyone gets to practice and improve their reading, pronunciation and public speaking skills as well as improving their vocabulary.
What words did Roald Dahl create?
Here are some of the vocabulary words that I adore and that have become so well-known that every British person I know knows them:
- to whoosh means to move very quickly, and he makes this into ‘whooshey‘ which describes a very strong smell (as if the scent had whooshed right up your nostrils).
- scrumdiddlyumptious: something scrumptious + delicious
- churgle: a gurgle with laughter
- catasterous: something catastrophic + disastrous
- swashboggling: something very special
- oompa loompa: a creature that lives in Loompaland
- splendiferous: something splendid and wonderful and marvelous
- whizzpopper: aka a fart
- phizz-whizzing: aka excellent
- gloriumptious: something glorious and wonderful
If you would like to check how these words are pronounced in English be sure to watch my Ask Us Anything live on Roald Dahl:
I thoroughly recommend starting to read his wonderful children’s books and not forgetting his autobiographical books called Boy and Going Solo.
How can you join our free Reading Club?
If you want to join our weekly Reading Club and read his short stories with us, then please get in touch for the link. Leave a comment below, or email us at hello@intrepidenglish.co.uk
As part of Intrepid English’s mission for equality in education, I run this hour long reading club in English every Thursday and it’s available to everybody no matter their level, to empower everyone in English.
So come explore the world of Roald Dahl with us this winter!