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09/13/2007 Entry: "Roald Dahl's birthday/Revolting Rhymes"

WELL, WELL. Google features this celebratory graphic today.* I had no idea what it meant until I ran my cursor over it and got "Roal Dahl's birthday." What a terrific thing to Googleate.

Since the topic today seems to be Things Literary ... I just finished reading Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes (on the recommendation, I think, of DA). I was going to blog later about this iconoclast classic. But since it's Dahl's special day, here's a quote from his version of "Little Red Riding Hood":

He sat there watching her and smiled
He thought, I'm going to eat this child.
Compared with her old Grandmamma
She's going to taste like caviare.

Then Little Red Riding Hood said, "But Grandma,
what a lovely great big furry coat you have on."

"That's wrong!" cried Wolf. "Have you forgot
"To tell me what BIG TEETH I've got?
"Ah well, no matter what you say,
"I'm going to eat you anyway."
The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers.
She whips a pistol from her knickers.
She aims it at the creature's head
And bang, bang, bang, she shoots him dead.

Ms. Hood -- and her new wolfskin coat -- also turn up later to play a pivotal role in the tale of the three little pigs. :-)

Happy birthday (even if truly and totally belated, since he died in 1990), Roald Dahl.

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* Or they did feature it, past tense. It seems to have disappeared now, just a few hours later.

Posted by Claire @ 12:05 PM CST
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