Boy: Tales of Childhood

One of the books that I chose to read this summer was Boy by Roald Dahl. This book is non-fiction and is an autobiography, covering Roald Dahl’s life, from birth until his early twenties. I’m not a huge fan of autobiographies, but I found Boy exceedingly enjoyable. I would recommend this book for two main reasons. The first is that while Dahl does not stray from the truth of his childhood, he adds a great deal of colour to the story through his excellent writing. Dahl creates a vivid picture of what is occurring and provides the reader with an excellent understanding of all the characters. Another reason is that Dahl does not ramble on about his life, but entertained the reader with short anecdotes. Also, this book was written in a – pardon the pun – a boyish manner. This adds to the stories as he writes with somewhat of a mischievous manner.

Every autobiography has the chance to be biased. Roald Dahl’s book, Boy is a perfect example of how he writes in a slightly bias way, but it is obvious and only to add to the humour. Because each of the anecdotes are written from the point of Dahl, he enhances the tale by pretending he was an innocent bystander, while ensuring the reader that he is simply presenting the case in the same style he would if he were still that age. Dahl did an excellent job of writing in this style, and with that much colour in his writing, created a truly engaging autobiography. Also, it seems that Roald Dahl had an exceptionally brutal childhood, so these facts alone are almost fantastical producing a piece of literature that is quite informative as well as being highly enjoyable.