Going Solo, Roald Dahl

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the first book I remember thinking of as my favorite. My aunt gave it to me when I was in first grade, and my mom read it to me that year while I had the chicken pox. I had to take those awful oatmeal baths, and she would read to me while I was in the tub to keep me distracted.

For the next few years I devoured all the Dahl I could get my hands on, and his particular blend of quirk and whimsy with just a touch of creepiness was the defining literature of those years of my life. Matilda was my very favorite - I desperately wanted to be able to move things with my mind, and I'd be lying if I said I'd never tried. But the stories in Boy, stories from his own childhood, stayed with me in a different way. These were stories that were true, but not without their own kind of magic. I don't know how I missed Going Solo, his subsequent collection of stories from his young adulthood.

Starting with his first real job in Africa and continuing through his experiences as a RAF pilot, Going Solo is unmistakably Dahlian. It has the same knack for capturing the bizarre that the childhood stories do, the same sort of mischievous glimmer. But there's a maturity to these stories, and especially once Dahl enters the RAF there is a very real sense of danger. It's the Dahl I remember so fondly, but grown up just enough.

I'm glad I missed this when I was younger - I think I appreciated it more deeply reading it when I did, six months or so into my first real job. Far from home, if not as far from Dahl is in these stories, the sense of trying to find a place in the unknown resonated. It was a quick, easy read - it is, technically, a children's book - with just enough familiar to feel comforting, and just enough new to stay interesting.