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The Roly-Poly Bird is a fictional character in several children's books by Roald Dahl. He appears in The Enormous Crocodile (1978), The Twits (1980), and the poetry collection Dirty Beasts (1983).
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The Roly-Poly Bird is a fictional character in several children's books by Roald Dahl. He appears in The Enormous Crocodile (1978), The Twits (1980), and the poetry collection Dirty Beasts (1983).
The Roly-Poly Bird appears in a number of children's books by Roald Dahl – in two cases alongside Muggle-Wump the monkey. The Roly-Poly Bird is large, with fantastically coloured tailfeathers, and in Quentin Blake's illustrations has a blue body, a long neck and a crest on his head - rather like a peacock. He nests in an orange tree at least once, and his favourite foods are berries. He speaks two languages, Zulu and English, and is as intelligent as a monkey. He provides light relief to the reader.
In this story the Roly-Poly Bird is in his native land. The Crocodile boasts to many characters that he is venturing into the nearby village to eat human children; but the Roly-Poly Bird is the only one that he does not permit to warn him against it before rearing up and snapping at him – pulling out some of his tailfeathers in the process. Thereafter the Roly-Poly Bird flies after him and calls a warning when he is about to catch a little girl at a fair.
In this book, Muggle-Wump and his family have been forced, on pain of corporal punishment, to stand on their heads for hours on end in preparation for a possible circus act, while birds are caught in the glue-smeared branches of a tree in the Twits' garden and then cooked into pie. When the Roly-Poly Bird arrives he, via his knowledge of languages, translates the Muggle-Wumps' cries of warning and so deters the birds from sitting in the tree. He is himself prevented in turn from becoming stuck to the monkeys' cage when Mr Twit smears glue on its bars, and conveys warning of this to the other birds. When the Twits leave to buy guns as a last resort, he and the Muggle-Wumps use the same glue to trick the Twits into attaching themselves, upside-down, to their floor. The Roly-Poly Bird then carries the Muggle-Wumps home to their native Africa.
In this story, it is revealed that the Roly-Poly Bird has the power to transform into a giant toad and an even more giant snail. In "The Toad and The Snail", the two characters of the title are the same creature, magically transformed from one to the other when the giant Toad jumps with a small boy on his back into France, becomes the Snail to escape the amphibian-hungry Frenchmen and becomes the Roly-Poly Bird so that he can escape to England when the Frenchmen also express interest in eating the snail. He is again shown as a character that "saves the day".
In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, a Muggle is a person who lacks any sort of magical ability and was not born in a magical family. Muggles can also be described as people who do not have any magical blood inside them. It differs from the term Squib, which refers to a person with one or more magical parents yet without any magical power or ability, and from the term Muggle-born, which refers to a person with magical abilities but with non-magical parents. Equivalent terms used by the in-universe magic community of the USA include No-Maj and No-Majs ; French equivalents are Non-Magiques and No-Majes. Other terms are Can't-Spells and Non-Wizards.
Roald Dahl was a British author of popular children's literature and short stories, a poet, screenwriter and a wartime fighter ace. His books have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide. He has been called "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century".
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka.
The BFG is a 1982 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. It is an expansion of a short story from Dahl's 1975 novel Danny, the Champion of the World. The book is dedicated to Dahl's oldest daughter, Olivia, who had died of measles encephalitis at the age of seven in 1962.
Matilda is a 1988 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. It was published by Jonathan Cape. The story features Matilda Wormwood, a precocious child with an uncaring mother and father, and her time in school run by the tyrannical headmistress Miss Trunchbull.
The Witches is a 1983 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. A dark fantasy, the story is set partly in Norway and partly in England, and features the experiences of a young English boy and his Norwegian grandmother in a world where child-hating societies of witches secretly exist in every country. The witches are ruled by the vicious and powerful Grand High Witch, who arrives in England to organise her plan to turn all of the children there into mice.
James and the Giant Peach is a 1996 musical animated fantasy film directed by Henry Selick, based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. It was produced by Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi, and starred Paul Terry as James. The film is a combination of live action and stop-motion animation. Joanna Lumley and Miriam Margolyes played James's self-absorbed Aunts Spiker and Sponge, respectively, with Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss, Jane Leeves, Susan Sarandon and David Thewlis, as well as Margolyes, voicing his insect friends in the animation sequences.
James and the Giant Peach is a children's novel written in 1961 by British author Roald Dahl. The first edition, published by Alfred Knopf, featured illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. There have been re-illustrated versions of it over the years, done by Michael Simeon, Emma Chichester Clark, Lane Smith and Quentin Blake. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1996 which was directed by Henry Selick, and a musical in 2010.
The Magic Finger is a 1966 children's story by British author Roald Dahl. First published in the United States by Harper & Row with illustrations by William Pène du Bois, Allen & Unwin published the first U.K. edition in 1968. Later editions have been illustrated by Pat Marriott, Tony Ross, and Quentin Blake. The novel was adapted into a 1990 TV special on ITV (CITV). The author Roald Dahl narrated an unabridged recording for Harper Children Audio and Kate Winslet narrated an unabridged recording in 2013 for Penguin Audio.
The Twits is a 1980 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. It was first published by Jonathan Cape. The story features The Twits, a spiteful, idle, unkempt couple who continuously play nasty practical jokes on each other to amuse themselves, and exercise their devious wickedness on their pet monkeys.
George's Marvellous Medicine is a children's novel written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake. First published by Jonathan Cape in 1981, it features George Kranky, an eight-year-old boy who concocts his own miracle elixir to replace his tyrannical grandmother's regular prescription medicine.
The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me is a 1985 children's book written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake. The plot follows a young boy named Billy who meets a giraffe, a pelican, and a monkey, who work as window cleaners.
The Enormous Crocodile is a British children's story, written by British author Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake. A picture book written for younger readers than Dahl's other works, the story tells of a hungry crocodile who aims to eat human children via using various, not-quite-impenetrable disguises.
Dirty Beasts is a 1983 collection of Roald Dahl poems about unsuspecting animals. Intended to be a follow-up to Revolting Rhymes, the original Jonathan Cape edition was illustrated by Rosemary Fawcett. In 1984, a revised edition was published with illustrations by Quentin Blake.
The Roald Dahl Children's Gallery is a children's museum that uses characters and themes from the books of Roald Dahl to stimulate children's interest in science, history and literature.
Roald Dahl's The BFG, or simply The BFG, is a 1989 British animated fantasy adventure made-for-television film directed by Brian Cosgrove from a screenplay by John Hambley, based on the 1982 novel The BFG by Roald Dahl.
Rhyme Stew is a 1989 collection of poems for children by Roald Dahl, illustrated by Quentin Blake. In a sense it is a more adult version of Revolting Rhymes (1982).
"Muggle-Wump" the monkey is a fictional character in some of Roald Dahl's books for children, and "the Muggle-Wumps" are his family. A Muggle-Wump appears in The Enormous Crocodile and there is a Muggle-Wump with a family in The Twits. A Muggle-Wump lookalike appears in The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me. The first two stories have him almost as a symbol of retribution to the antagonists of the overall tale, whereas in the last one he is happy and safe.
James and the Giant Peach is a musical with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and book by Timothy Allen McDonald based on Roald Dahl's 1961 children's book of the same name.