Boy (book)

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Boy book cover

Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984) is the first autobiographical book by Roald Dahl (1916–1990), the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda and The BFG.

This book covers Dahl's life, from his first memories onward to leaving school, including accounts of his relationship with his mother and his treatment at English public schools. Like most of Dahl's work, Boy is aimed at children but does not flinch from describing the corporal punishment and other brutalities that were common in public schools at that time. It begins with a short history of his family and ends with his first job (he does not go to the university but starts working right after high school).

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Roald Dahl’s parents were Norwegian.

In the book, Dahl describes the horrid teachers and the even more fearsome Headmasters. The book discusses the ramifications of small mistakes or faults like forgetting pair of socks on the floor just before bedtime, burning your toast at tea, or even small things such as asking a teacher if you could go to the toilet at the "wrong time". The book says that these things could result in caning and penal servitude by the "higher-placed" persons in Roald’s society.

1987 edition

Even though Roald’s father died when Roald was three years old, Roald’s mother, Sofie Magdalena Dahl, travelled on annual summer vacations to Norway together with all her children. Roald’s grandparents lived by the coast in Norway, and by tradition the entire family took a small boat out to a little vacant island at shore. Here they lived a pretty primitive life with traditional Norwegian food and adventurous experiences around the sunbathed, idyllic island.

This book follows important, and some smaller events of Roald’s childhood. From the Great Mouse Plot when he went to Llandaff Cathedral School and terrorized Ms. Pratchett,the dirty owner of his favourite sweet shop, to the removal of young Roald’s adenoids without any form of pain-relievers, the book covers a variety of subjects. Many of Dahl’s descriptions are grotesque and lifelike, however, these descriptions are insight into what the situation was like in the twenties.

The book ends when Roald finishes school and goes to Africa to work for Shell oil company. Dahl's autobiography continues in Going Solo.

[edit] Key points in the story

Dahl's ancestry: Dahl's parents were Norwegian immigrants who came to Wales in about 1910. His father was more than 20 years older than his mother; he was born in 1863 and she was born in 1885. By the time Roald was born in 1916, his father was 53 years old. His father had been married before and had two children from his first wife, who had died shortly after the birth of their second child.

Roald's family tragedy: Roald's older sister Astri (his mother's first child) died of appendicitis in 1920, when Roald was still only three years old. His father died of pneumonia a few weeks later at the age of 57. This tragedy came shortly before the birth of his mother's fourth and final child.

Kindergarten: Roald started at kindergarten when he was four years old, but has very few memories of his time there. The kindergarten was near his home in South Wales.

The Great Mouse Plot of 1923: By the age of seven, Roald was attending Llandaff Cathedral School in the tiny Welsh city of Llandaff. He and his friends had a grudge against the local sweet-shop owner, Mrs Pratchett, a sour elderly widow who gave no thought to hygiene. They played a prank on her by putting a dead mouse in a sweet jar, and they were caned by the school headmaster as a punishment.

St Peter's School, Weston-super-Mare: Roald moved to St Peter's School, a boarding school in Weston-super-Mare, at the age of nine. The most significant event during his time at St Peter's was his caning by the headmaster after he was wrongly accused of cheating during an assignment. Other major events during his time at the school centred around the matron, who sprinkled soap shavings into the mouth of a boy who snored, and sent another boy to be caned by the head teacher as punishment for throwing a sponge across the dormitory. On a lighter note, a boy in Roald's dormitory sprinkled sugar over the corridor floor and the matron walked through it, though he was lucky enough to get away with it because he wouldn't own up and none of his friends would turn him in.

Goat's Tobacco: On one of Roald's visits to his grandparents in Norway, he placed goat's droppings in his brother-in-law's pipe.

Repton: At the age of 13, Roald moved to Repton School in Derbyshire, where he tells of the fagging duties which he had to perform for "Boazers", as well as the occasion when his friend received 10 lashes of the cane from the headmaster as punishment for bad behaviour. The headmaster of the time was, according to Dahl, Geoffrey Francis Fisher; who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury.