By Yasmin Giannini, aged 9 years old
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the best children’s book ever written, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and to celebrate the really nice people at the Roald Dahl museum invited me and my family and I to come along for a visit. I woke up really excited as we were heading to the Roald Dahl museum for a day out!
The first thing we saw when we arrived were the huge golden gates of the Chocolate Factory, they were almost identical to the massive gates shown in the film – so cool. Contrary to other London museums that I’ve been to, the museum is small, cute and grows bigger as your imagination is sparked. And trust me, there’s so much to do to hold your interest.
The museum brings Roald Dahl to life right in front of your eyes, you feel as if you’re really living his life; it’s like stepping into his family and being a part of it. You also learn some amazing things about Dahl, here’s what I learned:
Fact 1: Did you know that every day Roald Dahl ate a full bar of chocolate all to himself? When he’d finished, Dahl cleverly used the tin foil wrappings that were left over to make a ball that weighed 9.6kg and was 4cm wide!
Fact 2: Dahl was once married to a Hollywood movie star.
Fact 3: Dahl wrote a lot of his stories in a place called ‘The Hut’, it was like a garden shed made out of brick. The door to ‘The Hut’ was painted bright yellow (you get to see and touch the actual door at the museum), quite often local children would come to the door because they all wanted to see Dahl. As a remedy for distraction, he told the children that a wolf lived behind the door and that it would gobble them all up. This was far from the truth and his plan worked, the children stayed out of his way. Mischievous Roald!
My favourite part of the whole museum was the Twit Café. They actually served wormy spaghetti there and I think it would have been even better if they also put these things on the menu; Toad in the Bed (toad in the hole), Bird Pie and Eyeball Lemonade! Just like the food the real Twits ate.
The other amazing thing I loved was the Spark-o-meter. This asks you questions about Dahl’s life and then measures how sparky you are, ranging from Mr Wormwood and The Trunchball right up to Fantastic Mr Fox. My brother (who’s 6) loved this activity and made everyone in the family have a go. I was a sparky Mr Fox!
The Roald Dahl Museum is great for all Dahl fans. If the people who own the museum are reading this article, then I think us kids would like to see a bit more free-flowing chocolate please – especially for the 50th anniversary of Charlie. Maybe a whipperlicious chocolate fountain for us all to enjoy or perhaps some Wonka Bars for us to buy; or maybe even a Chocolate Factory Pick n Mix of fabulous sweets in the shop. These changes will make your museum even more scrumdiddlyumptious than it already is.
A trip to the Roald Dahl Museum really is a lip-smacking day out!
To find out more visit: http://www.roalddahl.com