Roald Dahl

Before Charlie, before the Chocolate Factory, comes a story of invention and imagination . . .

Ever since he was a child, Willy Wonka had dreamed of making chocolate and sharing it with the world.

'I do actually happen to know how to make tortoises grow faster, if that's really what you want.'

Mr Hoppy really loves his neighbour Mrs Silver, and Mrs Silver really loves her tortoise, Alfie.

One dark, silvery moonlit night, Sophie is snatched from her bed by a giant!

Luckily it is the Big Friendly Giant (the BFG), who is no ordinary bone-crunching giant, but instead prefers snozzcumbers and frobscottle to children.

Every Saturday morning the Gregg family goes off to shoot animals and birds. But the girl who lives next door hates hunting. Now it's made her so angry she's PUT THE MAGIC FINGER ON THEM ALL. And very strange things have begun to happen . . .

Mr Twit is a foul and smelly man who always has bits of cornflake and sardine in his beard.

Mrs Twit is scheming and sly and always thinking of the next horrible trick to play on her husband.

'Cruelty has a human heart . . .'

Even when we mean to be kind we can sometimes be cruel. We each have a streak of nastiness inside us. In these ten tales of cruelty master storyteller Roald Dahl explores how and why it is we make others suffer.