Fantastic Mr Dahl, by Michael Rosen, review Gin and tonic; Norwegians prawns with mayonnaise and lettuce: Kit Kat . . . and it made me smile to read that he owned a hundred budgerigars. Rosen also refers to Dahl losing a seven-year-old daughter - the biographer has gone through tragedy himself - and it's another touching moment in a book that couldn't be higher on empathy . . .of a fine modern children's writer for one of the past writing greats who will never go out of fashion. Fantastic Mr Dahl by Michael Rosen (Puffin, £6.99) It's worth noting, too, on this 13th September World Roald Dahl Day, that Dahl's own childhood memoir, Boy, has been republished in a nifty little hardback edition by Jonathan Cape. It's a fascinating read. You don't know, of course, how much exaggeration has gone into the tales but the accounts of his holidays in Norway (he was part-Norwegian and bilingual as a child) are charming and funny. He once secretly put shredded goat turds into the pipe of an insufferably boring relative as his complicite mother looked on silently. Dahl's boyhood love of words shine through and it's interesting to read his memories about the origins of Charlie And the Chocolate Factory. What is completely clear is that Dahl loathed cruelty and physical abuse. One of his former headmasters at Repton can't have been grateful for Dahl's memoir. The head, who used to administer 'vicious beatings' to young children, later became the very Archbishop of Canterbury who crowned Queen Elizabeth. Dahl writes: "It made me begin to have doubts about religion and even about God. If this person, I kept telling myself, was one of God's chosen salesmen on earth, then there must be something very wrong about the whole business. Roald Dahl: Boy (Jonathan Cape, £9.99) Michael Rosen will be talking about Roald Dahl on 29 September at The Telegraph Bath Festival Of Children's Literature. For information about the festival see bathkidslitfest.org.uk