Kidsmomo

Submitted by kaylee, Age 11 from Rhode Island

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There is a rumor spreading that there is a witching hour where (something) comes and takes you while you’re sleeping in bed, then eats you up! This is one of Roald Dahl’s amazing books! The bfg is not a plain old giant. He is sweet and nice.He is the one who won’t go anywhere near the other giants because he is the smallest! My favorite part is when bfg is telling stories of dreams from little children. I love this book. It’s very descriptive and I’d recommend this book for people who like funny and mysterious books.

Guess who has a birthday this month? Karen! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAREN!

(She doesn’t like to make a big deal about it, so naturally I make a big deal about it.).

Another awesome person who has a birthday this month? ROALD DAHL! His birthday was on September 13th, and he would have turned 95 tomorrow. As I’ve mentioned many times before, he’s one of my favorite authors. One of the hardest questions to answer, EVER: Which Roald Dahl book do you like the most? Well… I’m gonna avoid answering that, like I always do, by focusing on mini-reviews for some of the movies based on his kids’ books:

The BFG (1989)
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While there are quite a few differences from the book (especially at the end!), I’m glad that this was done with animation and not live-action. It was made in 1989 (when an old fogey like me was still a little kid), and I think we’re due for a new movie adaptation! Maybe this time around they’ll make it live-action and call up Ian McKellan (who plays Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings series) as the BFG.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
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Don’t let the title (or the old-fashioned poster) fool you — even though Willy Wonka is in the title, Charlie Bucket and Grandpa Joe are very important in this musical version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! One of my favorite scenes is when Willy Wonka sings “Pure Imagination” as the kids enter the chocolate-mixing garden room. My only pet peeve: this version is missing the nut-cracking squirrels, but I’ll let it slide since everything else about this version was just scrumdidilyumptious! Oh, but in real life: Oompa Loompas are kind of creepy.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
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Well, the squirrels are in this movie! And the bright visuals are stunning — exactly the wacky, zany color pallette I always imagined Charlie and Wonka’s factory would have. While I didn’t love Johnny Depp’s performance as Willy Wonka, all of the actors who played the kids were great — I actually wanted to be Violet Beauregarde or Veruca Salt, and they’re horrible! Oh, and Oompa Loompas in 2005 are still kind of creepy.

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From Crush the Turtle to Mr. Quimby, fathers come in lots of shapes and sizes.

And today, on the heels of Father’s Day, we honor them all in our latest podcast, all about books about dads!

Listen now: 

  (7:47)
Download the MP3 (3.7 MB)

• “Father-daughter make-over time!” — aka our mystery book (AND special guest) revealed!
• Our Books About Dads picks (Amalee and Danny, the Champion of the World)
• A dad-son book review from YOU (Peak)
• Disney animal dads
• We praise our awesomeness

Also, don’t forget: we’re kicking off our special month-long Summer Grab Bag theme! So send us a review of any of your favorite books, or any new books you’re reading this summer. And check out our Summer Grab Bag picks — all books that we’ve never recommended on Kidsmomo before!

— Karen and Nancy

Photo by flickr user Jim, the Photographer

WARNING! This blog entry contains spoilers for Roald Dahl’s delightful masterpiece, Matilda. If you haven’t read it yet, go read it now! (And then return to Kidsmomo.com ASAP!)

So, if you have read Matilda, then you’ve undoubtedly imagined yourself in Matilda’s shoes — her awesome, psychokinetic, eye-power-yielding shoes! But before she discovered her secret superpower, Matilda was just a quiet, smart, little girl who loved to read and didn’t fit in with her family. Matilda was like every other student at her school, Crunchem Hall — terrified of headmistress Miss Agatha Trunchbull. So what would you do if Miss Agatha Trunchbull sniffed you out in a classroom, leaned over your desk, and started… singing?

That’s what would happen if you were part of Matilda, A Musical! Commissioned by the uber-famous Royal Shakespeare Company, the play in two acts includes songs like:

“Pathetic” (Miss Honey)
“The Chokey Chant” (The Company)
“Bruce” (Children)
“Quiet” (Matilda)
“The Smell of Rebellion” (Miss Trunchbull and Children)
“Revolting Children” (Children)

Matilda was played by three girls about YOUR age who alternated performances. I wonder if the kid who played Bruce got to had to eat a lot of chocolate cake?

The musical ran in England from November 2009 to January 2011, but never fear! Rumor has it that it’ll be appearing on Broadway in the United States! (I certainly hope so!)

Check out this trailer (the voice presumably belongs to the scary Miss Trunchbull) that we discovered on School Library Journal and the official website.

— Nancy

As a kid, Nancy tried many times to move things with her mind by staring at them for a long time, but always just ended up with bugged-out eyeballs.

Meet Nancy

It seems like we always have to mention food and bad puns — even when we’re talking about scary stories! But there’s also plenty of spine-tingling terror in our latest podcast, all about spooky stuff. Are you frightened by the idea of a duel with the devil, an evil plot to turn children into rodents, and ghosts who move among mortals? Then beware our new podcast!

  (12:47)
Download the MP3 (6.1 MB) 
• Which witch is the worst? You’ll meet her when we reveal our mystery book!
• Our dream Halloween costume ideas
• Our spooky book picks (The Boneshaker, Dying to Meet You)
• Horror recs from two of YOU (The Haunting of Derek Stone and Deep and Dark and Dangerous)

Also, don’t forget: next up, we’re celebrating the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 with a special month-long theme dedicated to books for Potterphiles! So send us a review of a book that you would recommend to a Harry Potter fan, check out our “Beyond Hogwarts” booklist, and watch our review of the new movie. Cheers, mate!

— Karen and Nancy

Copy of The Boneshaker provided to Kidsmomo by the author.

This book trailer for The Witches was originally the Mystery Book Theater video for our More Spooky Stuff theme. For more on The Witches, check out our “The Horror, the Horror” podcast.

Ah, a relaxing vacation to the British Isles… What could be better than staying in a nice English hotel, where many of the other guests are proper-looking ladies who always wear gloves, have slightly-too-large nostrils, and are constantly scratching at their hair? Wait a minute! Could it be these women are not what they seem? That’s what our hero finds out in Roald Dahl’s The Witches.

I’m sure you’re familiar with Roald Dahl’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in which a strange collection of wacky kids tour the most fantastical candy factory of all time, owned by an eccentric genius. And I’m sure that as you read it, you thought to yourself, “Gee, this story is so boring. It really needs just one more weird misbehaving child to liven things up.”

No? Well, apparently, Roald Dahl didn’t think so either, because he actually left out some potential ticket winners from the final version of the book. Luckily for us, The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets comes out this month — it’s a new book containing a deleted chapter from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, plus some other behind-the-scenes tidbits about Roald Dahl’s life.

The deleted chapter stars Miranda, who Dahl described as “a horrid little girl who was disgustingly rude to her parents and also thoroughly disobedient.” That’s all I know because I haven’t read the book yet. But I definitely plan to! Especially because this month kicks off a Roald Dahl Reading Dahlathon:

September is Roald Dahl Month (his birthday was September 13th), and to celebrate, the folks over at the official Roald Dahl website are running a challenge for book-lovers. Read three of Dahl’s books by the end of December, and you could win a free book or even a Dahlathon medal! Unfortunately, I’m a bit too old to participate (I mean, I’m totally interested, but apparently I’m an adult or something). But you should definitely check it out!

And leave me a comment if you plan to participate. I wanna hear which three books you’re going to read!

— Karen

Karen was a mostly well-behaved kid. Although according to her mother, once the two of them had a stand-off over a crumpled piece of tissue that Karen threw on the floor and refused to pick up. Guess who won in the end. (Mom.)

More about Karen »

This book trailer for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was originally the Mystery Book Theater video for our Food theme. For more on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, check out our “Get In My Belly” podcast.

Are you constantly craving dessert? Do you have a sweet tooth? Does your mouth water at the mere mention of… SUGAR? Then chances are, you’ve already devoured Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. But you’ve never seen it like this — re-imagined as a television infomercial!

Guess what happens when I have a lot of spare index cards, markers, and a circular stencil? That’s right, folks! I’ll be continuing my crazed overlapping circle drawings today:

Fun Owl Fact: Their eyeballs are fixed in their sockets, which is why they've evolved to be able to turn their heads all the way around.

I probably thought of this because of D (above). *Hooo... Hoooo...*

It's not just the difference in species of bird (swans and pheasants)... Pick up the books and find out!

And magic, of course. Hagrid is also much less delicate with his pink umbrella.

The main characters being Bone and Squirrel -- not to be confused with an actual bone and squirrel. Hey! Bone and RIBsy... Darn, I wish I caught that earlier.

Submit your book Venn diagram in the comments!

— Nancy

Click on all the thumbnails in this entry to see the full illustrations!

There are many talented people who worked to bring the magic of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox to the silver screen — and I was lucky enough to talk to one of them!

Okay, not talk… But I did get to email with Chris Applehans, a very talented artist who worked on storyboards for the movie. Storyboards are sketches of how a movie’s plot progresses, so the movie makers can plan ahead and get an idea of how it’ll look.

Me: Did you read Fantastic Mr. Fox for inspiration, and if so, what did you think?

Chris: Yes, I love all of Roald Dahl’s books, so it was fun to read Mr. Fox again.

Me: Which character was your favorite to draw, and why?

Chris: I like drawing Kylie, because he’s an oddball but very funny so it’s a challenge to capture his personality and his pose.

Me: Have you seen the movie yet? What did you think? Did you have any thoughts when you saw the trailer and the stop-motion for the first time?

Chris: I have, and I enjoyed it. I think the “feel” of the film is just right. The stop-motion looks a little more handmade than some other recent films (Coraline), but I think it worked for this story and for the kind of laid-back tone that Wes was going for.

Me: Have you read any other Roald Dahl books? Are there any you would want to illustrate or create conceptual art for?

Chris: Yeah, I love all his books. I would love to illustrate Danny, Champion of the World…

I say… YES! Do it! Danny, the Champion of the World is an AWESOME book!

— Nancy

P.S. – To see more of Chris’ amazing drawings for Fantastic Mr. Fox, check out his blog!

P.P.S. – And if you missed it, watch our video review of the Fantastic Mr. Fox movie! (We sing. No, really.)