Author Guide | BookFairy
📖 About Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl was one of the most distinctive children’s writers of the twentieth century, creating stories filled with impossible adventures, grotesque adults, clever children, dark humour and a very particular kind of magic.
Born in Wales in 1916 to Norwegian parents, Dahl had an extraordinary life long before he became famous as a children’s author. During the Second World War he served as an RAF fighter pilot and later worked in Washington in a role connected with British intelligence. His experiences eventually found their way into his writing, including his autobiographical books Boy and Going Solo.
He later settled in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, where he lived for 36 years and wrote his children’s books in the small Writing Hut in his garden. That hut became an important part of the way he worked and is now preserved by the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre. Dahl died on 23 November 1990.
His books include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, Danny, the Champion of the World, The Twits and many others. His stories have continued to reach generations of readers around the world, often helped by Quentin Blake’s instantly recognisable illustrations.
What makes Dahl so memorable to me is the way he refuses to make children’s fiction too safe. His stories can be funny and magical, but they can also be cruel, unsettling and wonderfully grotesque. Terrible adults are allowed to be genuinely terrible, children are frequently underestimated, and justice tends to arrive in spectacularly exaggerated ways.
Why I Read Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl is one of those authors whose books remind me how imaginative children’s fiction can be when it is not afraid to be strange.
I enjoy the combination of humour, darkness and complete absurdity in his stories. A child can climb inside a giant peach, meet enormous insects and travel across the world. A friendly giant can collect dreams. Witches can secretly live among ordinary people. None of it needs pages of explanation. Dahl simply establishes his rules and expects you to come along for the adventure.
His characters are another reason I keep returning to his books. The children are often lonely, ignored or surrounded by adults who treat them terribly, but they are rarely helpless. They find friends, use their intelligence and eventually discover ways to change their circumstances.
Not every Dahl book works equally well for me, but when the mixture of darkness, humour and imagination comes together properly, his stories are incredibly difficult to forget.
📚 Books Reviewed on BookFairy
Explore my Roald Dahl reviews on BookFairy, from giant peaches and friendly giants to witches, extraordinary children and some of the strangest adults in children’s literature.
📖 Reading Order
📚 Roald Dahl Children’s Books
Most of Roald Dahl’s children’s novels are standalones, so there is no required reading order.
A good way to explore them is simply to choose whichever story appeals to you most:
- James and the Giant Peach
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Fantastic Mr Fox
- Danny, the Champion of the World
- The Twits
- George’s Marvellous Medicine
- The BFG
- The Witches
- Matilda
- Esio Trot
- Billy and the Minpins
💜 BookFairy Recommendation: There is no need to read Roald Dahl chronologically. Pick the story that sounds most fun to you and jump straight in. For pure Dahl weirdness and adventure, James and the Giant Peach is an excellent introduction, while The BFG combines his humour and imagination with one of his warmest friendships.
📚 Complete Bibliography & Reading Order
Looking to explore more of Roald Dahl’s work beyond his beloved children’s classics?
Discover his complete bibliography, including children’s novels, adult fiction, short stories, poetry, autobiographies, screenplays and collected editions, organised by original publication year.
The guide also includes reading orders, Romanian translations and publishing history, and direct links to my five BookFairy reviews: James and the Giant Peach, Danny the Champion of the World, The BFG, The Witches and Matilda.
📖 Explore Roald Dahl’s Complete Bibliography, Reading Order & Romanian Translations →
⭐ Where Should You Start?
If you are completely new to Roald Dahl, I would start with one of the books that captures several sides of his writing at once.
James and the Giant Peach gives you the impossible adventure, grotesque adults, humour and found family that make his stories so distinctive.
The BFG is another wonderful starting point if you want something warmer while still getting plenty of Dahl’s strange language, absurd humour and imagination.
If you prefer the darker side of his children’s fiction, The Witches is an obvious choice. And if you want one of his stories where the child’s intelligence becomes the real superpower, Matilda is probably the place to go.
💜 My Favourite Roald Dahl Book
Matilda and The BFG are my favourite Roald Dahl books.
They show two slightly different sides of what I love most about his writing. Matilda has the clever child standing up against awful adults, the dark humour, the sense of justice and that wonderful feeling that intelligence can become its own kind of power. Matilda is one of Dahl’s most memorable characters for me because she is smart, curious and far stronger than the people around her expect.
The BFG, on the other hand, has a much warmer kind of magic. I love the friendship at the centre of the story, the strange language, the dream-catching and the way something so absurd can also feel incredibly tender.
If I had to choose the two books that best represent why I enjoy Roald Dahl, these would be the ones. Matilda gives me the sharpness, humour and satisfying rebellion, while The BFG gives me imagination, warmth and wonder.
Together, they are probably the clearest example of why Dahl’s stories have stayed with me for so long.