The Roald Dahl Treasury

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We celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stories, traditions and living cultures; and we pay our respects to Elders past and present.

This splendidly illustrated treasury--which we discovered with unfettered glee--showcases excerpts from the above books, along with short stories, rhymes, memoirs, unpublished poetry and personal letters.My husband reads to our unborn baby every night from this book (and others), which is absolutely adorable. Having had this on my shelf for probably over 10 years, and feeling as child that it was too daunting a read, being 444 pages, I really wish i had dipped in and out of it because it is truly magical! I clearly did not understand what an extract was and didn't realize the book only contained samples of the longer stories. The only down-side to this book was reading extracts and reviews of the books I hadn't read, because I wouldn't know the story or in some cases, I wanted to carry on reading but it was only a chapter long, and couldn't get hold of a copy to read the full book! As with any Dahl creation, there are many dark and twisted happenings in this collection with many characters meeting rather unfortunate ends.

It is nicely divided into four themes: Animals; Magic; Family, Friends and Foes; and Matters of Importance. I recently read somewhere, an author saying the best advise he ever got was to always read Roald Dahl. Plus work by a few other artists of note: Patrick Benson, Ralph Steadman, Raymond Briggs, Babette Cole, Posy Simmonds, Fritz Wegner and others. FIRST EDITION FIRST ISSUE 1997, small 4to, 260 x 200 mm, 10¼ x 7¾ inches, red boards, yellow lettered spine, pages: (4), 1-444. All in all a really rich collection of Dahl and definitely a book I'd bring out to help with bedtime stories when babysitting.I felt myself thrown right into the whirlpool of craziness that is Dahl’s written universe, and with the illustrations that to me at least were so emblematic and in line with his writing. For some stories, it felt as if Dahl was there telling you the stories himself which I enjoyed immensely. Although this book doesn't contain many complete books in it, alot of the extracts are complete chapters, rhymes or stories.