The story felt almost plausibly true, as if Dahl hazily recalled an account of an island child somewhere in the papers a few decades before but had to use his imagination to fill in the blanks. The onlookers are shocked by the animal’s docility when the child clings to its neck and whispers, but they’re not quite prepared for what happens then and the following day.
As they discuss how tasty its steaks will be and how much his shell will go for, a child runs up shrieking for the reptile’s life. A massive old sea turtle lies upside down on the beach, caught by a fisherman, sold to a hotel, and gawked at by a crowd of vacationers. He writes this story from a first-person perspective, a Brit vacationing in Jamaica and witnessing an incredible event on the beach. OK, enough chit-chat.Įven if I once read something of Dahl’s in passing years ago, I don’t recall it, so I’m calling this story my first-ever taste of a Roald Dahl story, an author I’ve long wanted to read. I love getting lost in these things, and I love even more that I needn’t wait too long for the payoff. I feel like I’ve been there my whole life, yet before I know it, the story is over. When handled correctly, they bring me into new worlds, but for a moment, worlds which need no further explanation than what the expert author provides. Most were elegant accounts touched with a hint of magic, as you’ll see, and they each reminded me of why I love short stories so much. This collection of 7 stories is for adults as much as kids, and I’m actually glad I didn’t read all of them aloud to my kids (especially “The Swan”).Īs I like to do with other short-story collections, I’m sharing what initial thoughts I had about each tale immediately after I read it, story-by-story.
Now that I’m old and have kids of my own, though, I thought I’d try out some of Dahl’s short stories with this book, one I’d never heard of before.
In fact, I recall being floored at age 13 by Disney’s adaptation of James and the Giant Peach, an animation style akin to The Nightmare before Christmas which just expanded my mind to the possibilities of what live-action-styled animation possessed (this was before computer-animated movies were any good, by the way). Growing up, I’d never read any of Dahl’s books, but I knew the film adaptations well. Who can’t picture Willy Wonka in his purple suit and hat? Bet you you just did! Perhaps his most popular works of fiction, those about Charlie and his Chocolate Factory, became ever more iconic films than were the books themselves. There probably aren’t too many adults out there in the Western world who haven’t experienced at one time or another the wacky imagination of Roald Dahl.
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