Evidence that Roald Dahl’s childhood was ripe with material for his many books for young readers—books renowned for their edgy humor, monstrous adults, and intrepid children—can be found in this engaging autobiography. Dahl’s happy home life among his several siblings is sharply contrasted with his experiences at boarding school, beginning at age nine. Details of a world filled with detached and sometimes vindictive adults is brought to vivid life, both in the narrative and in excerpts from Dahl’s letters home. The letters exist because his mother saved every piece of written correspondence Dahl sent from childhood until her death. The final pages cover Dahl’s early job experiences after leaving school, working for Shell Oil Company in England and East Africa before joining the Royal Air Force at age 22, in 1939. This volume adds new material to Dahl’s autobiography Boy (U.S. edition: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1984). A generous number of photographs, reproductions of letters, notes, and postcards, illustrations, and sidebars create a scrapbook feel for an unforgettable memoir. (Ages 9–14)