My childhood dream came true yesterday when we visited the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden, England. I have literally been dreaming about this day since I found out this place existed. Here's a little history on my extreme love for the best writer of children's books ever.
I wasn't the kind of kid that loved reading. I wanted to be outside playing soccer or football or riding bikes with my friends. I didn't really like school past 2nd grade (shout out to the best teacher ever, Mrs. Arrott!), and I thought reading was a waste of time. Then I discovered Matilda. It's the first book I can remember reading cover to cover, not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I loved it so much I read it again. And again. And again. Eventually I discovered other Roald Dahl books and loved them, too. When I became a teacher, I knew I wanted to share my love of Roald Dahl with my students. Corey, being the amazing school that it is, allowed teachers to paint their classrooms however they wanted. I knew right away that I had to have a Roald Dahl themed classroom. I spent hours and hours creating characters from the BFG, to Matilda, to James and his insect friends to Charlie and the Oompa-Loompas. My students even helped by creating tiny minpin people to hang in our tree after we read The Minpins, and one of them practiced making characters out of sticks at recess. One year my biggest Roald Dahl-loving student and I dressed up as Violet Beauregarde for Halloween. She was the unplumped Violet and I was the giant blueberry Violet. Basically, you could say I am slightly obsessed with this man. The more I read about him, the more I love him.
To say this day was a dream come true is an understatement. It's like I was meeting a childhood idol who inspired me and gave me a love for reading that I struggled to obtain as a young girl. The only thing better than this would be meeting him in person.
Here are the pictures from one of my favorite days ever.
The whole town has tiny Christmas trees jutting out from their buildings. Very festive.
The museum :)
The BFG :)
Little touches of Quentin Blake are sprinkled throughout the museum.
First stop, the "Boy" room. If you haven't read Boy, Tales of Childhood, you need to run to your nearest bookstore and pick yourself up a copy today.
A letter from Roald Dahl to his mom :)
Little Roald on the right.
Mrs. Pratchett and the Great Mouse Plot!
Wonka bar doors
Did you know Roald Dahl was a fighter pilot in WWII?
I loved this measuring stick. I'm exactly as tall as Miss Honey :)
His writing hut. Messy and filled with weird things, just how I imagined it.
The yellow ball thing next to the airplane is the top of his femur.
The BFG's shoes!
This is a magical place for kids. There are stations everywhere set up to inspire writing, creating, crafting, illustrating... It's amazing.
The genius and his pups.
These story sacks were filled with interesting facts about his stories. Matilda was originally a naughty girl and Miss Honey was originally Miss Hayes.
He set up his writing space to relieve the chronic back pain he suffered from crashing his plane in WWII.
Here's his perfect writing position...
Here's his perfect writing position...
I'm sitting in his chair!! Well, not HIS chair, but an exact replica... pretty much the same thing. His chair is sitting safely behind a glass wall, protected from all the grimy fingers of eager fans like me.
Miss Honey's classroom
Tons of artwork and stories from kids around the world.
I love this picture. Even though it wasn't high on Casey's list of things to do, he totally got into it and loved it because I did.
Cafe Twit :)
Casey got a slice of Bogtrotters Cake, of course.
Doesn't it look delicious?!
Fizzy lifting drinks :)
This little blue door is inside the museum next to Cafe Twit, and it's a private residence. How cool would it be to tell your friends that you live in the Roald Dahl Museum?
And as if that wasn't picture overload enough, we have more from the cute little town of Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire.
This is someone's front door! So cute!
We ended our tour at The Cross Keys, the local pub.
Oh, just eating my roast dinner and drinking beer beside the crackling fire in the local pub on a rainy December day in England... No biggie.
Casey and I have a traveling deal; we do something I want to do, and then we do something he wants to do. His something is always drink beer in a pub, which I love because it gives me more time to do what I want to do :)
And one last farewell picture while we wait for the train.
I shall return to Great Missenden someday to share the magic of Roald Dahl with my future children.
This really was one of my favorite days ever. I almost cried when I walked into the museum, as I tend to do when I'm overly happy, but I held it together so I could read all the fact cards. I could write for hours and hours about how much I love Roald Dahl, but I will stop out of fear of losing one of my 7 blog readers.
Roald Dahl Museum, happiest place on earth.
