Otherways- Fiction Fanatics

A new feature in the blogs will be authors we love. There's no genre catch here, but you'll either be a very prolific author, or a very dead one to end up on here. It's more or less my version of sainthood for the pen and ink set, and to be cannonized you need to perform three miracles (or really awesome books). Oddly enough, the first person I thought of  for this questionable honor was a children's author.

In all honesty, I initially rejected him at first simply because he wrote for children. Who doesn't remember Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or Matilda? While I love the worlds of science fiction and fantasy, I have to admit that the love of these things stems from a love of the pure imagination a person like Roald Dahl possesses. If you've only seen the movies, I urge you to actually read the books, even as an adult. Yes, they are children's books in that they are short, fairly straightforward, and there isn't a lot of romance. Okay, pretty much nothing in that department. There is a lot of wonderfully absurd violence, delightful karma, and the kind of adventures every kid deserves to have.

Matilda and Charlie could qualify Roald Dahl on their own for the status of beloved author, but I have to admit, they aren't my favorite. Besides the movie version's Oompa Loompas, which frankly gave me nightmares when I was a child, Charlie Bucket's books are awesome. Matilda, as a strong, charming, and utterly faithful to child logic character won my heart. But it's George that I love most, George and his Marvelous Medicine.

This one isn't as popular, simply because it hasn't had an instantly classic movie made from it. I'm doubting it ever will, partly due to the deliciously terrible content. You see, George has a grandmother that babysits him, a terrible, strange bug-eating grandmother who takes medicine every day. It's perfectly obvious to George that the medicine isn't doing her any good as she is still just as awful after taking it as before. As any enterprising child might do, he conspires to mix his own for her from the dozens of things lying around his home and barn.  Naturally, most of these things should be kept out of the reach of children and never taken internally. The results are most unexpected, and quite fun.

Having been guilty of just such medicine mixing misadventures (although never tested upon my grandmother), I can totally relate. Mine were somewhat less effective, and sadly to this day I can neither fly nor turn myself invisible, despite having drunk more than one potion for those purposes.

Three "miracles", or totally awesome books,  that brought joy to millions, and continue to do so today. He didn't stop at three, though. The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The BFG, The Twits, The Witches, and Revolting Rhymes top my personal list of his best works. All well worth reading, even if you don't have kids.

Adventure, magic, imagination, a sense of justice and a deliciously warped sense of humor, these are the qualities you find in Roald Dahl's works. I don't really think of him as a children's author, so much as I do an author with the heart of a child. Open, and loving, true, but also full of outlandish plans for well deserved vengeance on those that don't play nicely.

Cheers,

Michelle