World Book Day = cultural outing

Yesterday was World Book Day, and even though I ostensibly work in the publishing industry it toally snuck up on me. In fact, I only found out because Husbandio saw an article in the local paper that said that the Roald Dahl Museum had free entry for adults and children on the day itself. So, we packed ourselves into the car after school and headed off for a bit of literary culture. On the cheap, naturally.

The museum was excellent - full of interesting bits about Roald Dahl's life, which I liked, and lots of interactive stuff for Isabel. And chocolate doors into one of the rooms (OK, plastic, but looked and smelled like chocolate - very cool!). She was very entertained by the story-telling session we went to, where someone read and acted out some of the Revolting Rhymes and Dirty Beasts poems. They're great - anarchic enough to appeal to both adults and children.

I know people say that Roald Dahl was an unpleasant character and that his books have more rough edges than today's delicate children should be exposed to, but I disagree. He may not have been very nice but he wrote like a dream, had a deliciously subversive sense of humour, and told stories which contain, for me at least, just the right combination of grit, fantasy and moral rectitude. I'm so pleased Isabel's now of an age when we can start to share some of his books and I'm amazed how much I can remember of them - I hope they make as much of an impression on her as they clearly did on me. And I'm also pleased that he wrote lots of more adult stuff too, since I think I'll be getting back into those as well. Trouble is that some of his stories are so memorable that even I, with my terrible memory, haven't forgotten them. I need a total memory block so I can read them all from scratch - 'til that's invented, I'll have to settle for living vicariously through my daughter.