Common Sense Media Review
Dahl autobiography focuses on nasty school days.
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Parent and Kid Reviews
Based on 6 parent reviews
Based on 13 kid reviews
Kids say that the book is a fascinating exploration of childhood experiences, combining humor with brutal truths about discipline and growing up. While some praise its educational value and engaging storytelling, others note the graphic depictions of violence, making it both entertaining and potentially challenging for younger readers.
- educational value
- graphic depictions
- humorous storytelling
- engaging experiences
- challenging content
Summarized with AI
Summarized with AI
What's the Story?
Roald Dahl's anecdotal autobiography focuses mostly on his unpleasant experiences at three schools. Between ages 7 and 9, Dahl attended school in his Welsh hometown, where he and his friends declared war on the neighborhood sweetshop witch and were roundly caned by the schoolmaster. Attempting to save her son from such beatings, his mother sent him across the Channel to boarding school, where conditions were even worse and the boys had only each other in a world of authoritarian and often violent schoolmasters. At 13, he was graduated to Repton, where his athletic abilities and his size shielded him slightly from the general atmosphere of persecution, though he makes it clear that the headmaster was a genuine sadist. In this last section, Dahl also looks forward in time to his coming adventures in Africa, and allows himself some observations about how his childhood experiences shaped his later life.
Is It Any Good?
Because Dahl tells repeatedly of the cruelty of schoolmasters who constantly refined their caning techniques on him, some children will be saddened, and others enraged, by the unfairness of it all. These scenes clearly show the child's vulnerability in an adult world. But, unlike in most novels -- such as Dahl's own -- in this true story, the abusers never get their comeuppance. These are not reasons for children to avoid BOY, however; they may, in fact, be reasons children will respond to the book, which promotes the values of honest courage and determination. It also has lighter descriptions of teachers, such as the eccentric old bachelor, Corkers.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the harsh realities of the author's boyhood experiences and how the subject of school punishment is handled differently when it comes to today's kids.
Do you admire Dahl for enduring abuse at the hands of his schoolteachers, do you pity him, or is it a little bit of both? Would you have enjoyed being a student at his school?
If you were to write a book of tales from your childhood, which incidents would you include?
Would you include bad things that happened to you as well as good things? If so, why?
Book Details
- Author :
- Genre : Coming of Age
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Penguin Group
- Publication date : January 1, 1984
- Number of pages : 176
- Last updated : October 9, 2025
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