Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl

After reading and being absolutely obsessed with Matilda in elementary school, I made quick work of Roald Dahl’s other books.  I am fairly certain that I read all of them and can’t think of one that disappointed.  His kind of dark humor and belief that kids are smarter than we give them credit for won my heart then and make them stick in my head now.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was pretty much perfection in my opinion.  Snotty kids, clueless parents, a factory (if you know me, you know I have a think for factories…), tons and tons of candy,  tiny worker men?  Perfect.

This led to a total with the original movie when I was younger and unlike a lot of people, I loved the Johnny Depp one too.  The Gene Wilder one is probably in my top 10  movies, but I thought that the Johnny Depp one was probably closer to the movie and made me laugh out loud. A lot.

When I was in high school, I was at a friend’s house on the afternoon of trick-or-treat.  We were just sitting on the patio talking and saw a perfect little oompa loompa riding a bike down the street.  I freaked totally out and told Emily to go in and get a camera while I chased this kid down.  He panicked, as I’m sure I looked like a crazy person.  He rode his bike faster than I could run, so we got in the car and chased him down.  This sounds so crazy now, but at the time it was totally logical.  Anyway, when we “caught” him, we just took a few pictures with him and told him what a perfect oompa loompa he was.  The pictures turned out great, so I framed one and put it in my room, such is my love for Willy Wonka.

Probably a full year or two later, my younger brother had a friend over and they walked past my room.  His friend turned to him and said, “Dalton, why does your sister have a picture of me up in her room?”  Hilarious.  It was the little oompa loompa kid and I had successfully freaked him totally out… again.

All this to say that my love for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory actually turned me into a creeper. I love it.

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I remember my third grade teacher giving me a nice, shiny copy of this book and telling me that Matilda always reminded her of me.  I was immediately sold because: 1- it seemed like a huge, fat book at the time, which I have always loved, and 2- I loved my third grade teacher, Miss Dodson, with an undying passion. I thought she was the gentlest, sweetest, prettiest woman who had ever lived and I wanted to be just like her.

So, it turned out that Matilda was about this little girl who didn’t fit in with her family because her parents were crazy (true of mine, at the time) and her brother was dark and mean (also true of mine at the time).  She escaped by reading.  Her school principal was a complete nut and marched around glaring at kids.  All true of my life.  And then there was Miss Honey.  The gentlest, sweetest, prettiest teacher in the world.  And she loved Matilda and helped her fight all the evils in her life.  In fact, Matilda even ended up living with Miss Honey.  Was Miss Dodson saying she wanted me to live with her?! Did she want to adopt me?!  To this day, I still picture Miss Dodson’s house just how they described Miss Honey’s- a little cottage with a pretty garden all around it.

I think that I would have loved this book anyway because Matilda and I really did have a lot in common and nothing beats how Roald Dahl writes for kids- not like they are stupid, but as if, in fact, they are much smarter than the adults around them. The fact that this book had reminded my beloved teacher of me just put it over the top for me.  It will always be one of my favorite children’s books.

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