Roald Dahl’s Mother and Father

Roald Dahl’s father, Harald Dahl, was a Norwegian who came from Sarpsborg, a small town near Oslo.

When Harald Dahl was 14 years old, he lost his arm.  He was working on a roof, when he fell and fractured his elbow.  The local doctor came showed at his house drunk. The doctor mistook the fractured elbow as a dislocated shoulder.  He brought in two men off the street to help pull the arm. The doctor and the two men caused tremendous damage.  The splinter of the bone was sticking out through the skin of his forearm.   In 1877 the best orthopedic surgery people could do was to cut the arm at the elbow.

Later in his life, Harald Dahl married a woman named Marie.  They had girl and boy.  After giving birth to their second child, Marie died. 

After that tragic event, he married Sofie Magdalene Hesselberg.  She gave birth to three girls and a boy (Roald Dahl.)

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl was born in Liandaff, Wales on September 13, 1916.        He attended many different schools as a child.  This may have influenced his love for reading.  As an adult, Dahl flew for the British during the war effort as an “assistant air attaché”.  He was shot down and was forced to make a crash landing.  His head hit the reflector, which left him blind for days and fractured his skull, pushing his nose in.

Later in his adult years, he turned to writing.  He wrote two autobiographies, seventeen children’s books, two novels, three poetry books, twenty-six short stories, eight screen plays, and six miscellaneous.

The BFG

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Danny the Champion of the World

Dirty Beasts

The Enormous Crocodile

Fantastic Mr. Fox

George’s Marvelous Medicine

Going Solo

Esio Trot

James and the Giant Peach

The Magic Finger

Revolting Rhymes

The Twits

The Witches

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More

Boy

Matilda

The Giraffe and the Pelley and Me

The Minpins

The Gremlins

The Vicar of Nibbleswickle