Extract A
Under the palm of one hand the child became aware of the scab of an old cut on his kneecap. He bent forward to examine it closely. A scab was always a fascinating thing; it presented a special challenge he was never able to resist.
Yes, he thought, I will pick it off, even if it isn't ready, even if the middle of it sticks, even if it hurts like anything.
He got a nail underneath it, and when he raised it, but ever so slightly, it suddenly came off, the whole hard brown scab came off beautifully, leaving an interesting little circle of smooth red skin.
Nice. Very nice indeed. He rubbed the circle and it didn't hurt. He picked up the scab, put it on his thigh and flipped it with a finger so that it flew away and landed on the edge of the carpet, the enormous red and black and yellow carpet that stretched the whole length of the hall from the stairs on which he sat to the front door in the distance. A tremendous carpet. Bigger than the tennis lawn. Much bigger than that. He regarded it gravely, setting his eyes upon it with mild pleasure. He had never really noticed it before, but now, all of a sudden the colours seemed to brighten mysteriously and spring out at him in the most dazzling way.
You see, he told himself, I know how it is. The red parts of the carpet are red-hot lumps of coal. What I must do is this: I must walk all the way along it to the front door without touching them. If I touch the red I will be burnt. As a matter of fact, I will be burnt up completely. And the black parts of the carpet. .. yes, the black parts are snakes, poisonous snakes, adders mostly, and cobras, thick like tree-trunks round the middle, and if I touch one of them, I'll be bitten and I'll die before tea time. And if I get across safely, without being burnt and without being bitten, I will be given a puppy for my birthday tomorrow.
He got to his feet and climbed higher up the stairs to obtain a better view of this vast tapestry of colour and death. Was it possible? Was there enough yellow? Yellow was the only colour he was allowed to walk on. Could it be done?
Extract B
Conradin was ten years old, and the doctor had pronounced his professional opinion that the boy would not live another five years. The doctor was silky and effete, and counted for little, but his opinion was endorsed by Mrs. De Ropp, who counted for nearly everything. Mrs. De Ropp was Conradin's cousin and guardian ( ... ) One of these days Conradin supposed he would succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome necessary things-such as illnesses and coddling restrictions and drawn-out dullness. Without his imagination, which was rampant under the spur of loneliness, he would have succumbed long ago.
Mrs. De Ropp would never, in her honestest moments, have confessed to herself that she disliked Conrad in, though she might have been dimly aware that thwarting him "for his good" was a duty which she did not find particularly irksome. Conrad in hated her with a desperate sincerity which he was perfectly able to mask. Such few pleasures as he could contrive for himself gained an added relish from the likelihood that they would be displeasing to his guardian, and from the realm of his imagination she was locked out--an unclean thing, which should find no entrance.
In the dull, cheerless garden, overlooked by so many windows that were ready to open with a message not to do this or that, or a reminder that medicines were due, he found little attraction.
Extract C
So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality-the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds-the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy-and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yardwhile the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle's heavy sobs.
Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.
Extract D
And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.
Magic was very important to Roald Dahl. While adults usually avoided the subject, he knew that children had a profound sense of the supernatural. Roald's last children's book, The Minpins, is filled with magic. And so is first, James and the Giant Peach.
In Roald's eyes, magic is transformative. It provides a way out of a difficult situation – an escape from a dull or harsh reality into a stranger, more exciting world. The old man's magic beans set the ancient peach-tree growing and enable James's escape from the cruelties of his life with Aunts Sponge and Spiker. Soon he will be flying across the Atlantic Ocean, "in a magical world of silence, swooping and gliding over the dark world below, where all the earthly people were fast asleep in their beds."
Roald's profound sense of wonder at the grandeur and mystery of the world was honed by his experiences as a fighter pilot in World War II, where he often found himself on his own, high above the earth, travelling through extraordinary landscapes. To him these too were magical. "Clouds like mountains towered over their heads on all sides, mysterious, menacing, overwhelming ... ,"he writes in James and the Giant Peach. "The peach was a soft, stealthy traveller, making no noise at all as it floated along. And several times during that long silent night ride high up over the middle of the ocean in moonlight, James and his friends saw things that no-one had seen before."
Magic can be a dark force, as it is in The Witches, but most of the time, it is a power for good. It is a way for the downtrodden young heroine of Roald's early book The Magic Finger to assert herself. She uses powers to thwart an overbearing teacher and entertain her classmates, but also as a way of achieving justice. "I can't stand hunting," she bluntly tells the reader, "I just can't stand it. It doesn't seem right to me that men and boys should kill animals just for the fun they get out of it." Her magic powers will teach those hunters a lesson they will not forget. Twenty years later, Roald's most famous heroine, Matilda, would work her own similar brand of magic.