ENGL 2323.730 January 24,2018 Roald Dahl: James and the Giant Peach Roald Dahl, the British children's author, was born on 13 September 1916 in Llandaff, Wales. He was the only son of the marriage, having six sisters. At the age of three, his father and older sister died, leaving his mother to provide for the rest of her children alone (Roald Dahl Biography). After his father's death, his mother enrolled him at Llandaff Cathedral School. Dahl ran into trouble on the first day trying to pull a prank. Shortly after the disciplinary action, Dahl's mother removed him from the Cathedral School and placed him in St. Peter's, which was a boarding school at the time. Before Dahl's father died, his wish was for his son to attend this school because St. Peter's had a reputation for being an excellent academic school. Even if that was the case, the young, wild and mischievous Dahl didn't seem to fit the part. He later moved, for a second time, to Repton where he refused to follow any education, wanting only to be free and travel the world. After successfully graduating from Repton, he refused to accept his mother's offer to support him financially to go to Oxford or Cambridge University. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Upon his return, a trip to Newfoundland, he found work for the Shell Oil Company in Tanzania, Africa, where he worked for seven years ( Roald Dahl). After his time in Tanzania, he became a World War II fighter pilot in the British Air Force. It was stationed in the Mediterranean where it once encountered an emergency and had to crash land in Alexandria, Egypt. This emergency left him with serious head, back and hip injuries, forcing him to undergo a hip replacement and two back surgeries. He was then transferred to Washington DC where he became an assistant air attaché. (Roald Dahl). Once he moved to Washington DC, he met a writer who influenced him to begin his writing career. C.S. Forester, a journalist for the Saturday Evening Post, encouraged Dahl to write down his various experiences and stories from his time during World War II and publish them. Dahl wrote so effectively that Forester contacted Dahl and told him he should become a writer because he didn't have to change a bit of the piece. This began his writing career, with the article "Shot Down Over Libya", published in 1942. After writing newspaper stories for a year, Dahl published his first children's book The Gremlins with the help of Walt Disney. The book was not considered a children's book, but it caught the attention of Eleanor Roosevelt. Dahl soon became a frequent visitor to the White House thanks to Mrs. Roosevelt's support. His career in children's books didn't take off until he and his wife had children in the 1960s (Roald Dahl Biography). Dahl and his wife Patricia Neal, an award-winning actress, married on July 2, 1953, a year later purchasing the Little Whitefield farm which he later renamed Gipsy House in England. The following year Dahl's first daughter, Olivia, was born on April 20. Two years later, on April 11, his second daughter Tessa was born, and on July 30, 1960, the two had their first child, Theo (Howard). Around this time Dahl began writing his first children's book. He drew inspiration from bedtime stories he made up for his daughters and son. Those stories eventually sparked enough ideas for Dahl to write James and the Giant Peach, publishing it in the United States in 1961 and six years later in the United Kingdom.).