I read this in year 7 for English and I loved it.

Me, I normally hate school books. But this one was different, I really liked this one. It was just so interesting. I can still remember half the stuff that happened in the book. That is how much it stuck with me. I recommend this to fans of Roald Dahl and even non fans, this book is different from all his other work.



Good different...

I still recommend it, the things that happen and how he describes it is just...



That is the only word to describe More...

(Deciding to re-read this book was inspired by the wonderful ladies at Gathering Books and their fantastic bimonthly meme‘Everything Dahl and Magical’. Which I absolutely adore. )


“When writing about oneself, one must strive to be truthful. Truth is more important than modesty. I must tell you, therefore, that it was I and I alone who had the idea for the great and daring Mouse Plot. We all have our moments of brilliance and glory, and this was mine.”

I first read this glorious memoir aged twelve More...

My interest in reading this novel was stimulated a few weeks ago when I visited some friends, one of whom over the course of the evening dug up his collection of Roald Dahl books and proceeded to reintroduce us the magic we had near forgetten we had experienced as children in reading them.

I have always loved the sheer dottiness of the tales of Roald Dahl - the horrid nature of the some of his adult characters and the heroic nature of his young but strong willed main characters.

What I loved abo More...

This is my favorite autobiography. I was envious of Dahl when he told of the story of when Cadbury would send new candy to his boarding school for the children to test. I remember the candy he described, it sounded delicious, but today you can't find the candy because this was around the 40's. I don't know why I just went on a tangent about candy; I guess Roald Dahl has that effect on me.

This was one of those eye openers for me as a child; I read Boy countless times (and back home still have the well worn edition from 1986). The concept of an autobiography was so new and radical, at a time when reading was all make believe and fiction; it 'really happened', it wasn't made up! Rather, a magical book that opened up another world, glimpsing a life I would never experience.

His remembrances of childhood and school life are frank, vivid and frequently horrific. In particular, his acc More...

I'm not usually one for autobiographies, but this one rocked. Ronald Dahl was a fortunate child. Fortunate that he wasn't killed many times by events in his life and by the awesome adventures and memories he was privileged to have.
I will give you my favorite excerpt from this book.
"It won't take two seconds, " the doctor said. He spoke gently, and I was seduced by his voice. Like an ass, I opened my mouth.
The tiny blade flashed in the bright light and disappeared into my mouth.

You must read the More...

'We all have our moments of brilliance and glory, and this was mine.'

"Boy: Tales of Childhood" was one of the books gifted to me by my girlfriend, Portia, on my 26th birthday. She had urged me to read this before delving into Roald Dahl's other work of personal nature, "Going Solo". So I started this today and finished it today. The book is described by Dahl not as an autobiography but just a recollection of events that he could skim from the top of his consciousness, events that have stayed wi More...

"Boy" is a hilarious, sometimes painful, and didactic account of a young British man's life in the first part of the twentieth century. This young man just happpens to become the very influential author and diplomat, Roald Dahl. I am a big Roald Dahl fan, and its wonderful to get a glimpse into the childhood of a brilliant mind, who gave the world many wonderful characters, this time all nonfiction. Next I think i'll reread "Matilda" and "The BFG".

The memoir takes a the reader on a walk through More...

Every time I re-read something by Roald Dahl I remember how much I love his writing style. I don't care what is and isn't true, I just love reading him write about anything. The story about the chocolate bar tasting and its relation to Charlie & the Chocolate Factory is my favorite.

I think Roald Dahl is probably the best children's storyteller. When my third grade teacher read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" to our class I remember thinking, "This guy is really good." But as good as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is (or The Twits or The Witches or Matilda or pick your favorite), it is "Boy", his memoir or childhood written for children, that I read so many times that the copy I found in my basement last week is completely ripped to shreds. He writes for children a More...

Roald Dahl is one of those authors who manages to make something absolutely horrible into something rather funny. He does so in Boy, which contains various stories of his childhood. His many childhood trials and tribulations, though dreadful for him at the time, make entertaining reading material, and Boy is a short but sweet collection of them. I hadn't read it in a while, and I didn't own this particular Roald Dahl, so I purchased it at Orca and enjoyed it all over again. Dahl also tells about More...

This autobiography that is claimed to not be an autobiography was absolutely wonderful. I am a huge fan of Roald Dahl and reading about his childhood made my love for his writing grow exceptionally. Before the book even started, he wrote a little expert about what the next pages were going to be about. He started it by claiming that it was not an autobiography because autobiographies were filled with boring facts about life, but this book would just be filled with stories. I liked that because I More...

Many remarkable things did happen to Roald Dahl when he was a boy, no doubt providing some of the marvellous ideas for his later books. And, like his stories, Dahl's childhood tales are unmissable. "Boy: Tales of Childhood" was one of the books gifted to me by my girlfriend, Portia, on my 26th birthday. She had urged me to read this before delving into Roald Dahl's other work of personal nature, "Going Solo". So I started this today and finished it today. The book is described by Dahl not as an More...

Kalau Roald Dahl diminta menulis autobiografi, ya beginilah jadinya. Walaupun dia bilang ini bukan autobiografi, karena katanya: Autobiografi adalah buku yang ditulis seseorang mengenai kehidupannya sendiri dan biasanya penuh detail yang membosankan. Aku tidak akan pernah menulis tentang sejarah diriku sendiri

Dan buku ini memang jauh dari membosankan. Karakter orang-orang yang dia ceritakan di sini kadang tampak begitu absurd, mungkin Dahl tidak tahan untuk menambahkan sedikit banyak imajinasi d More...

I adore British schoolboy/schoolgirl stories. I grew up reading books like Mallory Towers, Naughtiest Girl in School, St. Claires, and all the other Enid Blyton favourites (ugh, North American schools PUT SOME BLYTON IN THE KIDS’ LIVES!). Give me a British / European boarding school setting and you have got me hooked. Luckily for me, Boy focuses on Dahl’s formative years in various private schools.

The anecdotes he has about tricks he played as a young boy, headmasters he dealt with, the boarding More...

Leila Habayeb
Independent Reading
October 7, 2012

“Boy- Roald Dahl - 160 pages"

Boy, by Roald Dahl is a fun, loving autobiography that I really enjoyed. The book is set from the early 1920's to the 1940's in old Europe, Britain mostly. Roald Dahl describes his stories as he grows up, from his experiences in primary school that lead to him being shipped off to boarding school and where he goes from there. The novel ends with Roald Dahl getting his first job with Royal Dutch Shell, and his continues i More...

Personally speaking, Boy, by Roald Dahl, is one of my favourite books, having been a boarding school student myself. Re-reading the book brought back memories of my school days away from home and this was something Dahl often struggled to deal with. As an adult writing the book, he is looking back on childhood memories, both wonderful and tragic. He recalls some of the pranks that he was involved in and how physical punishment by schoolmasters was considered acceptable in English schools during More...

I recently recommended this book for my friend Sander, and thought I should re-read it to remind myself why I liked it. I remembered it as my favorite Roald Dahl book, and I also remembered laughing so hard I couldn't keep reading. I laughed again this time.

This is my favorite Roald Dahl, because I love autobiographies more than fantasy. It is just as good as his other books, which I also like, but this genre is more appealing to me. Those who like fantasy will probably like his other stories b More...

I read this to my boy Leo as we've enjoyed reading all of Dahl's fiction together (apart from 'The Witches' which he wants to leave until he is older because it's scary at the start). I was not sure how my boy (he's 6) would respond to an autobiography - especially because Dahl's childhood was so long ago and there have been so many cultural changes. In fact, I did try to discourage Leo from choosing this as a bedtime book but as we've read most of the rest from the boxset I bought, he was deter More...

Delightful, dark - and thoroughly enjoyable. I have never read any of Roald Dahl's children's stories, but have always wanted to. His first memoir, BOY, is a very slight volume, less than 200 pages, but it is full of perhaps the most delightful and whimsical vignettes of childhood ever penned. While it is true there are some very shocking references to beatings and "canings" which were apparently quite common in English public schools, administered by both the masters and the older boys, the ove More...

A sheer delight of a book! This poignant, funny and at times very sad book chronicles Dahl's early childhood and the reader gains tremendous insights into how his experiences shaped him and became fodder for his wildly imaginative books.

Dahl's parents were Norwegian. Dahl's father became wealthy when, as a young man, he started a very lucrative business in Wales. Before marrying Dahl's mother, his father was a widow with two young children. His loving marriage to Dahl's mother produced five addi More...

I've grown to appreciate and enjoy the literary talents of Roald Dahl over the last six months or so, having read through about half of his seemingly infinite literary output with the kids in that time. (What is half of infinity? And umm, while we're at it... What was it like before the universe started? These are the kind of questions we're grappling with in the Jones household these days. Good stuff!) Not that having children is even really neccessary for reading Dahl, any more than it is for More...

I don't generally read children's or young adult books, but had to make an exception with this. I must have read many books in my childhood - as I read voraciously - some things don't change much. However the three books that have stayed with me longest and most vividly are: Beverly Nichols 'The Tree that Sat down' Nina Bawden's 'Carrie's War' and Roald Dahl's 'Danny the Champion of the world' The later I remember with such affection that although I was never necessarily a huge Dahl fan, I alway More...

I don't think Roald Dahl could write a bad book if tried.

This is such a nice memoir filled with stories that made me laugh out loud when I read them. Dahl wrote an autobiography every bit as entertaining as some of his fiction. Dahl's childhood is peppered with loss, adventure, injury, and his early experience in English boarding schools.

He describes how one of his favorite teachers refused to actually teach the subject of math. Instead, the teacher would have the students help him with crossw More...

Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl, is a charming autobiography based on his life from Kindergarten to graduation from High School, along with a introductory chapter on his parents. Though we now know that we cannot take Roald Dahl's autobiographies as 100% truth, they are still fun to read and make his life seem like a magical world not unlike Charlie or Matilda.
One of the most prominent parts of Boy for me was his representation of his teachers. It really gives some insight into why most, i More...

Everybody knows Roald Dahl, the author of Matilda, and of course Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But how well do you really know Roald Dahl? Did you know that he speaks Norwegian? And that he was an award winning photographer? Or that one time when he was nine his family was driving their brand new model-T ford and they got into an accident:
The front passengers all shot through the front windscreen and the back passengers all shot through the back windscreen. Glass flew in all directions and More...

Reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the first time was almost a mystical experience. I was around Charlie's age and even though I knew the book was way out there in terms of reality I understood the disconnect Charlie felt towards adults and authority. I didn't read lots of Dahl's other works until I was in library school. As an older reader I was struck by how hideous and cruel the adult characters were and how hapless the lives of the kid characters were written. I don't think JK Row More...

"Youth is wasted on the young" -- that aphorism, cynical and close-minded but with a rueful grain of truth -- comes to mind often when I read Roald Dahl. I remember enjoying the general sense of mischief in Dahl's books when I was a kid, but reading them as an adult, I relish them in a way that only a grown-up can relish memories of childhood. He amplifies the mysteries, the injustices, and the discoveries. In doing so he elevates the human enterprise and enhances your appreciation for our silly More...

As a fan of Roald Dahl's children's books from when I myself was a young one, I was interested when my wife recommended me "Boy." Its a short and light read, as far as autobiographies go.

It is full of cute little stories about Dahl's childhood, mostly revolving around major pranks he managed to pull off as a kid. One lovely scene tells the story of Dahl and friends putting a dead mouse in a jar of sweets at a store run by an unfriendly old lady.

The part I found most intriguing about the story, h More...

Boy by Roald Dahl is a autobiography describing the author's life since birth till school. He explains his unpleasant experience in three schools. As we all know autobiographies are always unbelievably boring. But Roald Dahl's different, his is more on the humorous side. He starts off with a childhood story how him and his friends sneaked a rat into the candy jar of a popular store amongst children. The store owner, a witch-like lady was furious and caused trouble at school by forcing the teache More...