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A Family Day Out: Roald Dahl Day and Beyond

by Rhonda Carrier

The fourth annual Roald Dahl Day   takes place this September 13th, but the late, great children’s writer’s birthday is celebrated not only by Buckinghamshire’s Roald Dahl Museum & Story Centre with its Fantastic Mr Fox themed day: it’s also the excuse for a month and more of Dahl-inspired events and celebrations around the country:

Sept 11th–Nov 1st: Newcastle hosts the 2009 Roald Dahl City Read , with every man, woman and child in the city challenged to read Fantastic Mr Fox and to send in drawings inspired by the book to be displayed in the city’s libraries.

Sept 26th: The Bath Festival of Children's Literature   includes a special public airing of ‘Everything You Wanted to Know About Roald Dahl’, the schools roadshow touring Britain this month.
 
Oct 3rd: The Royal National Theatre in London hosts readings of Dahl’s work by actors, presided over by Dahl’s main illustrator Quentin Blake, who will be drawing live on stage. Tickets are £3.50.

Oct 14th:  The Times BFI London Film Festival   opens with the premiere of Fantastic Mr Fox, featuring the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray and Jarvis Cocker and on general release from Oct 23rd.

Until Nov 7th. The stage version of The BFG continues its UK tours, with venues still to go including Norwich, Truro, Whitley Bay, High Wycombe, Cardiff (where Dahl grew up), and Liverpool.

Note also that the official Roald Dahl website is packed with games, information and Dahl-related news, and that in September a new Dahl cookbook, Roald Dahl’s Completely Revolting Recipes, illustrated by Quentin Blake, is released by Jonathan Cape. For more on Dahl’s recipes, see our feature by Dea Birkett ..

Note that 10% of author royalties from all Dahl books, films, plays, and merchandise are donated to the Roald Dahl Foundation , which supports chronically sick children and their families, partly by funding nursing posts in the areas of epilepsy, acquired brain injury and haematology.

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