Apparently yesterday was Roald Dahl's birthday. I know this because I have a child which means that I am suddenly privy to a whole world of holidays and events that I never knew existed when I was childless.
A new children's bookstore called Almosa Books just opened up near us, and to celebrate Rhald Dahl's birthday they were having a sort of party with lots of sugar, balloons, and a Roald Dahl story read-a-loud done by none other than Willy Wonka himself (or one of the employees pretending to be him).
Now, I am the first to admit that there have been days when I was teaching that I would present material to the students that I hadn't thoroughly looked through previous to class, but it has never ended well. Willy Wonka apparently hadn't read the story he picked out prior to the read-a-loud. It was the story of Little Red Riding Hood as told by Roald Dahl (who admittedly is a bit...dark). The audience was comprised of 2, 3, 4, and 5 year olds. Everything was going fine until he got the bit about Little Red pulling out a gun and shooting the wolf between the eyes. There was a silence in that bookstore that could be herd miles around. Wonka quickly finished the story and mumbled something about his other stories being much too long to read aloud before he made a mad dash for the safety of the back room. Ilya was oblivious, as were most of the other kids, but some of the mothers were shooting bullets of their own with the looks they gave. I found the whole thing rather amusing, but I'm that kind of mom.
Anyway, happy birthday Roald Dahl. When Ilya is old enough, you will definitely be on the reading list :)
No comments:
Post a Comment