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Click to view full description | 1. | AH, SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE Dahl, Roald
New York Knopf 1990 Hardcover Very Good ix, 179 p. : ill. : 20 cm.
From Publishers Weekly Rereading the seven stories collected here, observes Dahl in his preface, fills the British author with "acute nostalgia and with vivid memories of those sweet days" after WW II, when he wrote for four hours a day and then set off for the rolling, rural landscape of England's Buckinghamshire, looking for mischief. Yet little to date in Dahl's ( My Uncle Oswald ) fictional universe has been merely wistful or gentle, and these delicious tales, based loosely on Dahl's youthful exploits in the countryside, are in fact full of his characteristic literary capers; the works build, by book's end, a rustic community populated by con artists, poachers and thieves, where each man buffets his neighbor for supremacy and even the most stealthy among them strives to outdo adversaries with pranks. "My dear friends, you've no idea the trouble these rascals will go to," declaims a bogus clergyman in "Parson's Pleasure," where scams give life its meaning. This man of the cloth is actually an antiques dealer who uses his costume to persuade suspicious countrymen to accept small sums for their inherited valuables, which bring him large profits. Here and elsewhere, Dahl shrewdly uses ostensibly simple fables as vehicles for richly mordant examinations of human foibles. Illustrations not seen by PW. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal YA-- Written in the late 1940s, these seven short stories were originally published in American magazines and are collected here for the first time. The secret of determining the sex of a calf, the parson who collects antiques by duplicity, the illegal greyhound races using a ringer, the ingenious poaching methods for pheasant using raisins and sleeping pills, and a proposed maggot factory are among the everyday occurrences in a British village, related with deft craftsmanship in Dahl's unmatched style. A touch of irony, unexpected endings, and a hint of the wicked and shocking are couched in Dahl's brand of humor; young adults will accept the gruesome details as natural and entertaining. Black-and-white line drawings complement the text with character illustrations. A book that's useful for readers interested in writing, humor, and memorable characters and a possibility for booktalk introductions. --Julia M. Losinski, Prince George's County Memorial Library System, Hyattsville, MD Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Price: 10.28 USD | See Full
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 | 2. | CHARLIE AND THE GREAT GLASS ELEVATOR Dahl, Roald
New York Knopf Books for Young Readers 1972 Hardcover As New out of Print 0.8 x 6.5 x 9.8 inches
Picking right up where Charlie and the Chocolate Factory left off, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator continues the adventures of Charlie Bucket, his family, and Willy Wonka, the eccentric candy maker. As the book begins, our heroes are shooting into the sky in a glass elevator, headed for destinations unknown. What follows is exactly the kind of high-spirited magical madness and mayhem we've all come to expect from Willy Wonka and his creator Roald Dahl. The American space race gets a send-up, as does the President, and Charlie's family gets a second chance at childhood. Throw in the Vermicious Knids, Gnoolies, and Minusland and we once again witness pure genius. (Ages 9 to 12)
Price: 16.79 USD | See Full
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| 3. | VICAR OF NIBBLESWICKE Dahl, Roald
Penguin Young Readers Group 1994 Paperback Very Good 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.2 inches
ABOUT THE BOOK Vicar of Nibbleswicke ANNOTATION The vicar's speech impediment leads to holy hysteria in an otherwise quiet country parish. FROM THE PUBLISHER The Reverend Lee is suffering from a rare and acutely embarrassing situation: Back-to-Front Dyslexia. It affects only his speech, and he doesn't realize he's doing it, but the parishioners of Nibbleswicke are shocked and confused by his seemingly outrageous comments. At last a cure is found and the mild-mannered vicar can resume normal service. Or at least as normal as is possible for a man who must walk backwards to be sure of talking forwards! A highly comic tale in the best Dahl tradition of craziness, written for the benefit of the Dyslexia Institute. FROM THE CRITICS Publishers Weekly Imagine what would happen if a nervous young parson were re-afflicted with a peculiar strain of his childhood dyslexia, so that he unknowingly pronounced backwards only the most significant word in every sentence. In the fiendish hands of Roald Dahl, the parishioners must not only suffer the offense of praising Dog, but when the unsuspecting vicar attempts to compliment a group of little old ladies on the fact that each of them knits , his actual words incite chaos. Written for the benefit of the Dyslexia Institute in London, this slight book employs a host of jocular (though sometimes vulgar) malaprops to accentuate the beleaguered parson's condition. Blake's daffy illustrations have long captured the outrageous humor of Dahl's text, and this collaboration proves no exception. Of special interest is the illustrator's touching tribute at the end of the book, both to the late author's talent and to his ``passionate belief in the importance of reading,'' which inspired this, his last book. Ages 8-up. (Mar.)
Price: 6.83 USD | See Full
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