One of our fondest memories from childhood has us in our bed in the upstairs of a 200+ year old farmhouse in western Massachussets, flickering kerosene lamp dancing patterns on the spider cracked ceiling, while my father read to us from an old, broke-spined Roald Dahl book.
Not, as you might think, James and the Giant Peach or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Rather, Dahl’s adult fiction: creepy tales like Lamb to the Slaughter (where a wife, at a loss how to dispose of the impromptu weapon she has used to kill her husband, feeds it to the police), Skin (where a master artist’s tattoo work comes to be worth more than the back across which it is stretched), and, my old favorite, Royal Jelly (which appealed to the beekeeper to be in me).
For better of for worse, I don’t imagine they’ll be reading those tomorrow at Alphabet Soup Children’s Books (1406 N 45th St), but they will be having a little Roald Dahl Party:
Celebrating Roald Dahl
Wednesday, June 3rd 6 – 9 pmTrivia game starts at 7
Three rounds of questions will focus on four books: Matilda, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory…and some Qs about Roald, too!Enter a raffle to win Roald Dahl books.
Free refreshments, games & prizes, 10% off everything in the store
It’s the same time as Art Walk, so if, like Jen, a commentor on our Date Night post, you can’t take advantage of our Wallingford Romance Tour, you’ve got a fun outing anyway.
Recently read “My Uncle Oswald” and it too was quite a trip. Mr. Dahl had some imagination.
Now if they only had some high school students hanging out at Alphabet Soup to watch the kids, we could take advantage of date night…
“M a s s a c h u s e t t s”
Masachewsits