I remember enjoying the hell out of Shel Silverstein partly because of all the horrible crap that happened to kids just like me. It felt like there was an adult who was treating me, in turn, like an adult and not pulling any punches with me. I liked that alot.

I hate it when I can guess major biographical events/problems/desires in an author's life purely by a sampling of plot-events in his works.

I think Stephen King threw elements of his car accident and hospitalization into a bunch of his works at that time.

It felt like there was an adult who was treating me, in turn, like an adult and not pulling any punches with me. I liked that alot.

Not at all similar to Shel Silverstein, but I got the same thing from Paula Danziger. The plots and dialogue were so true and real. Her stories never felt dumbed down. The Cat Ate My Gymsuit was my fav.

I thought Christopher Paolini's Eragon had that same kind of feel (in that the language felt natural, not too adult, not to childish) and I'm wondering if that was a factor of his age or if his style will continue in that same vein.

Even Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a little too preposterous and cruel for me, even when I was 11 years old.

It's incredibly cruel to the preposterous parents of the four horrid children, but on adult re-read I was struck by how very gentle the story of the Bucket family was--a scrabbling, overcrowded, underemployed family of seven who are slowly starving to death, each trying to put the best possible face on it and be the least burdensome to the others, all the grown-ups (even the most querulous of the grandparents) deeply invested in little subterfuges and pretenses to shield the awfulness of it all from Charlie.

When I was a kid, I just loved the story; this time, reading with adult eyes, I was just about broken by his family's efforts to protect him. And the paragraph about Charlie beginning to starve in earnest and becoming very slow and careful and methodical about everything he does, all his attention focused on how best to conserve what little energy he has... gah.

Roald Dahl's autobiography is also fun. Um, in that cruelly amusing way. must reread the BFG!

Well, I was actually thinking "preposterous and cruel" in the sense that Charlie is literally starving. I mean, you don't have to be dying of hunger to be poor and hungry, and that element felt manipulative. I mean, it's all written as a fable, but there's the kind of fable where I forgive the unlikeliness, and the kind where I just can't.

Also, the annoying morals entailed to all the Other Kids at the factory. I mean, there was plenty of fun non-moralizing (one gag that didn't make it into the movie was Square Boxes That Look Round), but there was a lot of moralizing, in a cruel, straw-man way.

I loved the illustrations in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Grandpa Joe and all the other grandparents looked so kindly. I remember weeping bitter tears over poor James, living up on the hill with his horrid aunts and missing his parents and their vacations at the beach so terribly. Today I can have a conversation with my nephew about how just reading the words "Vermicious Knids" enough times can really crack you up.

MM, I loved The Great Brain books when I was growing up. And yes, Emmett does have a similar Money Loving Heart, though he hasn't proven to be quite so conniving. I'll introduce him to that series for sure.

I was not aware that it was a movie. I'd think that'd be pretty scary. Maybe I am forgetting what I liked as a child. I am thinking this would be for an early elementary age 6-8, right?

It's a bit scary because Anjelica Huston doesn't hold anything back in her wickedness. Emmett relished the book, but found the movie scarier. (Though not too scary in his case, since he'd already seen all the Harry Potters and LoTR movies in theaters.)

Did you read Superfudge first?

I think we read that bunch out of order, with Sheila last. I think he started with Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing with his teacher in class. His teacher also got him started on Dahl, by reading James and the Giant Peach in class. Knut had sent me a copy of The BFG so that was handy to keep the Dahl-love going.

I kind of love that Dahl's grownups tend to be so awful. And not for the mordant streak, but because I think of his books as little notes in a bottle to children in unloved circumstances. As much as Emmett enjoys them, I think a smartypants girl in a family of surly, non-readers would latch on to Matilda like a life-preserver. I knew a boy growing up with an abusive, alcoholic father and James was his favorite novel.

I think we read that bunch out of order, with Sheila last. I think he started with Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing with his teacher in class.

If you read it Tales, Superfudge, Sheila then that's the right order. I was just curious.

Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself is another wonderful Judy Blume book. I still read it occasionally. More for girls than boys, but still a nice read and wonderfully written.

I heart Judy Blume.

little notes in a bottle to children in unloved circumstances

This is the line in Matilda that always gets me bawling (when I watched the movie with my mom, she almost had a stroke shouting, "Stop! Stop! Rewind! I need to hear that again!"):

So Matilda's strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.

And from Charles Taylor's review of the film on Salon.com:

At the end of the movie Matilda has her nose in another book, and among the last words we hear her say are "Call me Ishmael." In other words, this end is another beginning, with Matilda waiting to see where the next story will lead her. Perhaps, like the books she loves, out into the world, like a ship on the sea.

IIRC, Blume has said in interviews that Sally J Freedman is her most autobiographical book, and one of her favorites (not egotistically, but because so many of her specially beloved and missed family and friends live on in it).