Going Solo

by Roald Dahl

Overview

From the bestselling author Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG comes an autobiographical account of his exploits as a World War II pilot! 

Superb stories, daring deeds, fantastic adventures! Learn all about Roald Dahl's encounters with the enemy, his worldwide travels, the life-threatening injuries he sustained in a plane accident, and the rest of his sometimes bizarre, often unnerving, and always colorful adventures. Told with the same irresistible appeal that has made Roald Dahl one of the world's best-loved writers, Going Solo brings you directly into the action and into the mind of this fascinating man.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780142413838
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	01/22/2009
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	47,055
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	1080L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was born in Wales of Norwegian parents. He spent his childhood in England and, at age eighteen, went to work for the Shell Oil Company in Africa. When World War II broke out, he joined the Royal Air Force and became a fighter pilot. At the age of twenty-six he moved to Washington, D.C., and it was there he began to write. His first short story, which recounted his adventures in the war, was bought by The Saturday Evening Post, and so began a long and illustrious career.

After establishing himself as a writer for adults, Roald Dahl began writing children’s stories in 1960 while living in England with his family. His first stories were written as entertainment for his own children, to whom many of his books are dedicated.

Roald Dahl is now considered one of the most beloved storytellers of our time. Although he passed away in 1990, his popularity continues to increase as his fantastic novels, including James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The BFG, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, delight an ever-growing legion of fans.

Learn more about Roald Dahl on the official Roald Dahl Web site: www.roalddahl.com

Date of Birth:

September 13, 1916

Date of Death:

November 23, 1990

Place of Birth:

Llandaff, Wales, England

Place of Death:

Oxford, England

Editorial Reviews

The esteemed novelist, short-story writer, author of children's classics and screenplays presents a sequel to Boy, his first book of memoirs, published as a children's book. Now 70, Dahl chronicles events of his youth, when he worked in Africa and garnered material for his chilling tales about lethal snakes and other perils. The autobiography dwells mainly, though, on Dahl's experiences in the British Royal Air Force and on his comrades during World War II. Appealingly illustrated, this second volume contains copies of the author's letters to his mother and ends with their joyful reunion. The book is exciting, touching and graced by Dahl's incomparable sense of humor: a standout. 20,000 first printing. (October)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In this book, Dahl (author of Kiss, Kiss and popular children's books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) continues the autobiography he began in Boy. Here he offers his impressions of Tanzania, where he sailed to work for the Shell Oil Company in 1938. At the outbreak of World War II, he volunteered for the RAF and trained as a fighter pilot. Posted to his squadron in Greece, Dahl was chagrined to learn he was one of only 14 pilots who made up the RAF in that theater. He describes the attempts of this small group of British pilots to survive both the Luftwaffe and their own superiors. For appropriate collections. George F. Scheck, Naval War Coll. Lib., Newport, R.I.

Library Journal

Gr 7-12-Roald Dahl was Going Solo (Puffin, 1999) when he left England to work for the Shell Oil Company in East Africa. In this sequel to his earlier autobiography, Boy (Dec. 2002, p. 71), the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory details his adventures in Africa and later as an RAF pilot during World War II. Dahl is occasionally tongue-in-cheek as he recalls a few highly dangerous snakes and an inordinately gentle lion during his travels around the African countryside. When war was declared, Dahl helped to round up German ex-patriots, and then he went off to a desert outpost to learn how to fly fighter planes. His wartime experiences in North Africa, Greece, and the Middle East included suffering a serious head injury in a plane crash and shooting down enemy planes. His descriptions of war are occasionally horrific, but there are also frequent injections of ironic humor. Though the thoroughly British pronunciation of some words may be unfamiliar to American listeners, Derek Jacobi's narration is well paced and splendidly balances the comic and serious elements of this memoir. The sound quality is good and, despite the fact that the cardboard case will not circulate well, both it and the cassettes provide useful information. This recording's straightforward recounting of war will appeal to Roald Dahl fans and World War II air buffs, and is most suitable for upper middle school and high school audiences.-Barbara Wysocki, Cora J. Belden Library. Rocky Hill, CT Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

His account of life as a fighter pilot in the Western Desert and in Greece has the thrilling intensity and the occasional grotesqueness of his fiction—Sunday Times

Very nearly as grotesque as his fiction. The same compulsive blend of wide-eyed innocence and fascination with danger and horror—Evening Standard

A non-stop demonstration of expert raconteurship—The New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

Children’s writer Roald Dahl’s memoir of working for Shell (oil) in Tanzania and training as a fighter pilot for the RAF ranges from scenes of comedic Scottish snake charmers to those of terrifying air battles. Dahl’s zest for life and absurdist sense of humor are perfectly encapsulated by Dan Stevens (“Downton Abbey”), who employs both wry and serious tones overlaid with just the right note of adventure. Stevens rolls through African place names and terms without hesitation. He’s a master of pacing, increasing his speed to maximize the excitement when chasing a lion that has stolen the cook’s wife and then amping up the astonishment at the discovery that she has been held so gently as to not be hurt at all. Dahl’s experience of the war and the Allies’ futile air strategy in Greece are appropriately rendered in a grave tone accompanied by disbelief. A.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2014 - AudioFile