DBWI: Roald Dahl starts writing kids' books

You may have heard of Roald Dahl - he was a Welsh (or English... and of Norwegian descent) writer of short stories (I think "Lamb to the Slaughter" is his most famous one, but he wrote hundreds), novels (e.g. "My Uncle Oswald") and movie screenplays (e.g. the James Bond movie "You Only Live Twice"). He was Patricia Neal's husband.

His stories were almost all strange and disturbing, involving horror, murder and sexual themes... so it was a surprise to me when I read his biography and found that he'd written a children's book at the very beginning of his writing career called "The Gremlins", inspired by his time in the RAF in WW2. Obviously it wasn't very successful and it's been out of print for over fifty years... but what if Dahl decided to give writing for children another go? Could he have been successful at it? Famous, even? Or would he have failed? Any opinions from fellow Dahl fans?

(OOC: All the above is true in OTL, including the thing about "The Gremlins" (obviously it was nothing like the movie, though). So basically in TTL Dahl is remembered as very much a writer for adults.)
 
I'd expect them to be much like his adult books, with everything except sexual themes. Children are quite fond of disturbing horrors and blood, provided its being shed by those deserving. It's a way of channeling their hatred for their apparently 'authoritarian' parents, and escape from their caste as 'the young and disregarded'.

So he could have had a career in Children's books, provided that they're fantasy books. Fantasy books provide more room to imagine, and are more tolerable since they can't appear in the real world.
 
Well he did diversify now and again. Remember "Attack of the Knids", his little-known foray into sci-fi? Most forget he published the idea of a space elevator seven years before Clarke did.
 
Well he did diversify now and again. Remember "Attack of the Knids", his little-known foray into sci-fi? Most forget he published the idea of a space elevator seven years before Clarke did.

Shape-shifting aliens eating the crew of a space station. In full (uncharacteristic) purple prose. Said elevator disengaging an unfortunate Knid by burning them on the atmosphere upon re-entry. And was that for children?
 
Dahl wrote a lot of children's books. James and the Giant Peach, The Iron Giant, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (aka Willy-Wonka) Matilda, The Witches and The BFG. He tended to put a lot of adult themes in his kid's books (for instance, there's a big debate about farting in The BFG) because he knew that children were more acute observers of adults than most people realise.

He said the reason he wrote children's books is that they were easier to write and they actually made more money than books for adults.

He first came to prominence in the UK with an anthology called "Kiss, kiss." This was an anagram of Sick, Sick - Sick as a style was very popular at the time. It contained the story Lamb to the Slaughter mentioned above. It also, as I recall, had a story of a man swallowed by a domineering woman, ending up in her soft red padded stomach (obviously a padded cell.) The imagery was entertainingly repeated in the screenplay of "You only Live Twice" where one spaceship swallows another.

Patricia Neal's autobiography describes meeting him in New York, a handsome successful English author and war hero. For her part, she wanted to end her association with Gary Cooper, who steadfastly refused to leave his wife for Neal.
 
Shape-shifting aliens eating the crew of a space station. In full (uncharacteristic) purple prose. Said elevator disengaging an unfortunate Knid by burning them on the atmosphere upon re-entry. And was that for children?

Just saying the man could write about a lot of subjects, is all.

Dahl wrote a lot of children's books. James and the Giant Peach, The Iron Giant, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (aka Willy-Wonka) Matilda, The Witches and The BFG. He tended to put a lot of adult themes in his kid's books (for instance, there's a big debate about farting in The BFG) because he knew that children were more acute observers of adults than most people realise.

He said the reason he wrote children's books is that they were easier to write and they actually made more money than books for adults.

He first came to prominence in the UK with an anthology called "Kiss, kiss." This was an anagram of Sick, Sick - Sick as a style was very popular at the time. It contained the story Lamb to the Slaughter mentioned above. It also, as I recall, had a story of a man swallowed by a domineering woman, ending up in her soft red padded stomach (obviously a padded cell.) The imagery was entertainingly repeated in the screenplay of "You only Live Twice" where one spaceship swallows another.

Patricia Neal's autobiography describes meeting him in New York, a handsome successful English author and war hero. For her part, she wanted to end her association with Gary Cooper, who steadfastly refused to leave his wife for Neal.

You lose this thread.

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DISBARRED
 
Hush, I'm trying to minimize the number of OOC explanations to noobs in game threads, posts are unnecessary when image macros and smackdowns will suffice.
 
He wasn't much of a writer IIRC and a shameless plagarist - it was only in the late 1970s and 1980s after his granddaughter was born that he began to gain recognition. There was that story about the race of giants who abducted children which saw Irwin Allen sue and the one about the girl who had the telekinetic powers which saw Stephen King sue. Fortunately for Dahl, he'd changed enough of the storyline to have the cases thrown out but still - a hack nonetheless.

Of course, if Dahl had written more "childrenesque" storylines, there might not have been any need for litigation.

On a side issue, I hear that Quentin Blake has won another award for his work on the Harry Potter novels.
 
(OOC: Not only did Johnnyreb completely lose this thread, he also got his facts wrong. Roald Dahl had nothing to do with The Iron Giant: Ted Hughes wrote "The Iron Man".

Jeez, and he's been here longer than I have.)
 

ninebucks

Banned
Seeing as he formerly had connections with the BUF, its probably a good job he didn't write childrens' books.
 
(note: im having fun with this timeline by having childrens book authors be "adult" writers, and writers of "adult" literature being childrens book authors)
It would have been as succesful as Judy Blume's ill-fated foray into youth literature (ie, not at all). Besides, do you really think he could have competed with the likes of john grisham or stephen king, whose books are still being discovered by young readers today?
 
Well yeah, but I think that a horror writer trying to transition into a children's book is somewhat more realistic than an S&M erotica authoress trying to do the same.
 
I think this is pure ASB, especially Johnny Reb's bizarre version of the TL. I mean, really, what kid is going to read about a giant peach?

You might not be aware that after the success of the film Live and Let Die (based on the Ian Fleming novel), Dahl was asked to adapt Ian Fleming's children's novel "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" into a filmscript. The result was a complete mess, with no coherent plot. This would seem to indicate that Dahl would not have been succesful as a children's writer, as his ability to write for adults did not seem to translate into a similar ability to write for children.

Most of Dahl's award winning work was in the horror genre, including his TV series "Tales of the Unexpected". I don't see how a horror writer could write for children. If we take Johnny Reb's suggestions, if Dahl wrote about a giant peach it would be inhabited by giant insects or something, if he wrote about a chocolate factory it would, I don't know, be a dangerous place that sucked up children who came on a tour. The sort of books that no healthy child would want to read. Of course there are a few of those sick demented children that seem to like this sort of stuff, but there is no way their parents would let them read it, and would not buy the books for their children. So Dahl could not possibly succeed as a children's author.

KEVP
 
I think that he'd be the literary equivalent of Edward Gorey, who has done some of the most wonderfully creepy picture books for kids that I've ever seen. Seriously, they put the more "adult" works of Maurice Sendak to shame. I can't say how popular he'd be, though, or even if librarians would be comfortable placing his books on the shelves.
 
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