What a Dahl-ing

"Those who don't believe in magic will never find it"

As one of my study breaks over the weekend, J and I tucked into some popcorn and fuzzy blanket, and watched Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr Fox". We have movie dates regularly in part for entertainment and also because J discovered my disgusting lack of pop culture knowledge. This film was an easy pick as we both read and loved the book when growing up. Now, as an adult, it has to be one of the best stop motion films I've seen! I'm probably a bit biased since I love Anderson's film aesthetics, but regardless it's still amazing. We watched the making of the film afterwards, and the amount of energy that is put into making every second (24 photos!) is ridiculous. I highly recommend.

I was a complete book worm as a child, I would challenge myself with how many books I could read in a week, over my summer holidays, and pages or chapters in one night. I would read up until the early hour of the morning and struggled to go to sleep if I forced myelf to stop in the middle of an exciting chapter. Roald Dahl played an important role in my childhood, with books that that I would read and re-read and then read again. Every book he wrote, captured me into hours of delight, I can now still picture the small film I would create in my mind as I read them. Even in school, we would all sit around on the floor with our legs crossed and gasp and giggle as one of our more animated teachers read the stories to us all. Everyone enjoyed Roald Dahl- even the children who didn't like to read. Needless to say Fantastic Mr Fox was not the only Roald Dahl book I enjoyed as a child. I think my favourites were ( in no particular order) James and the Giant Peach, The Big Friendly Giant, Boy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, okay so basically all of Dahl's children's books!

As an adult, I now appreciate the skill it would have taken for a grown man to write such great children books. Not only did he have an incredible imagination, he was also able to write in a way that entranced children, that made them giggle and gaggle and remember those moments and tales for years to come.

All photos from various nook and crannies of roalddahl.com