Happy Roald Dahl Day!

Today is Roald Dahl Day, a day to celebrate the splendiferous Roald Dahl and his wonderful books.  He wrote some of the funniest, most memorable stories for kids.  There are all sorts of ways that you can celebrate, like:

  • Wear something yellow – Roald Dahl’s favourite colour
  • Kalt sdrawkcab
  • Tell a silly joke – Roald Dahl loved swapping these with his kids
  • Write your own Revolting Rhyme
  • Read a Roald Dahl book that you’ve never read before – and if you’ve read them all, read your favourite again!
  • Make yourself a pair of gigantic BFG ears – and waggle them.

Check out these other Scrumdiddlyumptious Ways to Celebrate Roald Dahl Day.  There are heaps of other activity ideas, including quizzes about Roald Dahl and his characters that you can download on the Roald Dahl Day website.

If you love Roald Dahl and have read all his books, here’s some great books by other authors that you might like:

What is your favourite Roald Dahl book?

Big Nate: Here Goes Nothing by Lincoln Peirce

I’m sure you will know children who are crazy about the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney.  Boys in particular love the funny adventures of Greg Heffley, which are a mix of text and comic-style illustrations.  There are quite a few series now that are similar in style to these books, including the very popular Big Nate series by Lincoln Peirce.  So far there are 8 books featuring Big Nate, including two activity books and two books of original Big Nate comic strips.  The latest Big Nate book is Here Goes Nothing, and it’s chock-full of Big Nate comic strips.

In Big Nate: Here Goes Nothing, Nate and his friends get up to all sorts of mischief as usual, like pulling pranks at school, trying to make money by selling photocopies of his artwork, trying to convince his dad to get a dog, blogging about his teacher, and painting his grandparent’s house.  Lincoln Peirce read a lot of Peanuts and Dennis the Menace comic strips growing up and you can see these influences in Big Nate.  My favourite comic strip in the book is the one where Nate and Teddy hear the ice cream truck music, only to run outside and find out it’s the mobile library.  I don’t know why no one has thought of trying that before!

If you know a kid that’s wants to read a book like Diary of a Wimpy Kid or they just like comics, the Big Nate series is perfect.  Big Nate: Here Goes Nothing is available in libraries and book shops in New Zealand now.

Check out this video of Lincoln Peirce talking about Big Nate and drawing his character.