Roald Dahl's "Billy and the Minpins" to Have New Illustrations

Re-titled to reflect Roald Dahl’s original name for the book, Billy and the Minpins (1991) is the first time Quentin Blake has illustrated a new Roald Dahl hero in nearly 20 years.  This new title celebrates Billy as the quintessential Roald Dahl child hero.
 
Billy and the Minpins is the story of heroic Billy who saves the Minpins, tiny tree-dwelling people whose children are the size of matchsticks, from the fearsome Gruncher.
 
It explores themes seen in many of Roald Dahl’s other much-loved children’s novels including; small people living in a big world; the glory of flight; confronting demons; and, most importantly, the child hero. In Billy and the Minpins, readers will experience again the magical collaboration between Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake through a brand-new interpretation of Roald’s parting gift.
 
The Minpins was originally illustrated by Patrick Benson. This edition is still in print today and will sit alongside the new black-and-white edition, Billy and the Minpins.
 
Quentin Blake said:
 
I was delighted to be asked to illustrate Roald’s Billy and the Minpins; it feels like the cornerstone in our long collaboration together. As Roald's parting gift, Patrick Benson's illustrations in the original edition were perfectly suited to the lyrical feel of The Minpins. I have always greatly admired Patrick's artwork and am so pleased both books will sit alongside each other, reaching fans of all ages. This new edition has nearly fifty pages of black-and-white drawings, which means I can enjoy myself tremendously going into all the details of Billy’s exploits and adventures with the Minpins in the mysterious forest!
 
So, for all you Roald Dahl fans out there, look for this new-illustrated book.  Have fun!

Lost Chapter of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Published

A lost chapter of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, deemed too wild, subversive and insufficiently moral for the tender minds of British children almost 50 years ago, has been published for the first time.

The chapter, in Saturday's Guardian Review, with new illustrations by Sir Quentin Blake, was found among Roald Dahl's papers after his death. It was chapter five in one of many early drafts of the book, one of the best-loved children's books, but was cut from the version first published in the US in 1964 and in the UK in 1967.

In the chapter Charlie Bucket – accompanied by his mother, not his sprightly grandfather – and the other children are led into the Vanilla Fudge Room, where they face the sinister prospect of the Pounding and Cutting Room.

The chapter reveals the original larger cast of characters, and their fates, as well as the original names of some of those who survived into later drafts. Dahl originally intended to send Charlie into the chocolate factory with eight other children, but the number was slimmed down to four. The narrator reveals that a girl called Miranda Grope has already vanished into the chocolate river with Augustus Pottle: she is gone for ever, but the greedy boy was reincarnated as Augustus Gloop.

Dahl was living in the US after working for British intelligence at the end of the war, a successful author for adults - his 1960 collection, Kiss Kiss, went straight into the New York Times bestseller list - and married to the film star Patricia Neal, when he began writing for a younger audience based on the tales he was telling his own children. James and the Giant Peach was published in 1961, and by then the first draft of Charlie – in which the title character falls into a vat in a sweet factory and becomes a chocolate figure – had been discarded after Dahl's young nephew said it was rubbish.

Roald Dahl

He abandoned the book after his four-month-old son Theo almost died when his pram was hit by a taxi in New York, and the following year his seven-year-old daughter Olivia died of measles.

When he resumed work, his agent, Sheila St Lawrence, suggested that the workers should become "something more surprising" and added that she wanted "more humour, more light Dahlesque touches throughout". Violet Strabismus, nee Glockenberry, would become Violet Beauregarde, Elvira Entwhistle would return as Veruca Salt, and the mint grass meadow, the chocolate waterfall and the Oompa Loompas would soon appear in later drafts.

The book sold 10,000 copies in its first week: "He lets his imagination rip in fairyland," the New York Times said.The book has never been out of print and the UK editions alone are estimated to have sold more than 30m copies. It has been filmed twice, with Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp as the Wonkas, become an opera, and is also a current hit West End musical which opened in June 2013 and is now booking into late next year.

Like his first book for children, James and the Giant Peach, it initially struggled to find a UK publisher. Dahl blamed the publishers' "priggish, obtuse, stuffiness."

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Coming to London West End!

Look what's coming to the London stage!

Have a look at the trailer teaser at the bottom of the post.

Get ready to sing with Oompa Loompas, fight for golden tickets, and eat a lot of chocolate! A musical adaptation of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory is currently playing preview shows in London.

Award-winning actor Douglas Hodge stars as the genius, eccentric, confectioner Willy Wonka. The play officially opens on June 25, 2013. We’ve embedded the show’s trailer above–what do you think? Here’s more from the UK production’s official site:

Roald Dahl‘s deliciously dark tale of young Charlie Bucket and the mysterious confectioner Willy Wonka comes to life in a brand new West End musical directed by Academy Award® winner Sam Mendes…the wonder of the original story that has captivated the world for almost 50 years is brought to life with music by Marc Shaiman, and lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman (Grammy® winners for Hairspray; Smash), a book by award-winning playwright and adaptor David Greig (The Bacchae; Tintin In Tibet.

If you're in London after June 25 and have the opportunity, see it!  There is nothing like a blockbuster west end production.  They do it so well!

J.K. Rowling Sets Record with Sale of Harry Potter First Edition--All for Charity

For fans of the boy wizard, this could be the most coveted copy of all the Harry Potter books in the world.

A first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone that contains author JK Rowling's notes and 22 original illustrations fetched STG150,000 ($A234,815) at a London auction recently. - a new record for a printed book by the author.

Sotheby's said the work, offered as part of a charity book sale jointly organized with the English PEN writers' association, was sold to an anonymous bidder by telephone.  Two bidders ratcheted up the price for the book before the hammer finally came down, triggering a round of applause at the Sotheby's auction house.

 

Rowling wrote many personal annotations, including editorial decisions, comments on the process of writing and a note on how she came to create the game of Quidditch.  She also drew about two dozen illustrations in the copy, including a sleeping baby Harry on a door step and an Albus Dumbledore Chocolate Frog card.

As part of the fundraising event, Rowling and dozens of other best-selling author were asked to "scribble second thoughts, marginalia or drawings" on a first-edition copy of one of their books. 

J.K. Rrowling

A copy of Roald Dahl's best-selling children's book Matilda containing new drawings by illustrator Quentin Blake fetched STG30,000 pounds, while an annotated copy of Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed novel The Remains of the Day was sold for STG18,000 pounds.  Other participating authors in the charity sale included Ian McEwan, Seamus Heaney, Lionel Shriver and Yann Martel.

In all, the sale raised a total of STG439,200 pounds.  Certainly a good day in the charity business!

Roald Dahl: "The Best Children's Books are Funny"

"Humor, Roald Dahl said, is key to children's writing - "It's got to be funny!". That's the idea behind the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, now in its fourth year. This year it went to books about pirate cats and a doodling schoolboy.

Please view the You Tube video of the 2011 Funny Book Prize books at the bottom of the post.

Humor is bigger in children's publishing than ever. Comedy often comes from danger, but these books spin it out of safety and familiarity. In other words, kids want to be scared--as long as they know they are safe.

Read Roald Dahl's own words when asked, "What is the secret to keeping your readers entertained?"

 My lucky thing is I laugh at exactly the same jokes that children laugh at and that’s one reason I’m able to do it. I don’t sit out here roaring with laughter but you have wonderful inside jokes all the time and it’s got to be exciting, it’s got to be fast, it’s got to have a good plot but it’s got to be funny. It’s got to be funny. And each book I do is a different level of that.

Oh, The Witches is quite different from The BFG or James and Danny. The fine line between roaring with laughter and crying because it’s a disaster is a very, very fine link. You see a chap slip on a banana skin in the street and you roar with laughter when he falls slap on his backside. If in doing so you suddenly see he’s broken a leg, you very quickly stop laughing and it’s not a joke anymore. I don’t know, there’s a fine line and you just have to try and find it.

Which comedy classics do you remember from childhood, and are they still funny today?