The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.
Then there was a hard brown lozenge called the Tonsil Tickler. The Tonsil Tickler tasted and smelled very strongly of chloroform. We had not the slightest doubt that these things were saturated in the dreaded anaesthetic which, as Thwaites had many times pointed out to us, could put you to sleep for hours at a stretch. "If my father has to saw off somebody's leg," he said, "he pours chloroform on to a pad and the person sniffs it and goes to sleep and my father saws his leg off without him even feeling it."
"But why do they put it into sweets and sell them to us?" we asked him. You might think a question like this would have baffled Thwaites. But Thwaites was never baffled.
"My father says Tonsil Ticklers were invented for dangerous prisoners in jail," he said. "They give them one with each meal and the chloroform makes them sleepy and stops them rioting."
"Yes," we said, "but why sell them to children?"
"It's a plot," Thwaites said. "A grown-up plot to keep us quiet.
He turned and reached behind him for the chocolate bar, then he turned back again and handed it to Charlie. Charlie grabbed it and quickly tore off the wrapper and took an enormous bite. Then he took another…and another…and oh, the joy of being able to cram large pieces of something sweet and solid into one's mouth! The sheer blissful joy of being able to fill one's mouth with rich solid food!
'You look like you wanted that one, sonny,' the shopkeeper said pleasantly.
Charlie nodded, his mouth bulging with chocolate.
Don't gobblefunk around with words.
Roald DahlI was observing her closely as I talked, and after a while I began to get the impression that she was not, in fact, quite so merry and smiling a girl as I had been led to believe at first. She seemed to be coiled in herself, as though with a secret she was jealously guarding. The deep-blue eyes moved too quickly about the room, never settling or resting on one thing for more than a moment; and over all her face, though so faint that they might not even have been there, those small downward lines of sorrow.
Roald DahlA whangdoodle would eat ten Oompa-Loompas for breakfast and come galloping back for a second helping.
Roald DahlThen suddenly, he was struck by a powerful but simple little truth, and it was this: that English grammar is governed by rules that are almost mathematical in their strictness!
Roald DahlTag: grammar
A message To the children who have read this book. When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important. A stodgy parent is no fun at all! What a child wants -and DESERVES- is a parent who is SPARKY!" - Danny, the champion of the world.
Roald DahlEverything and all of them were being rattled around like peas inside an enormous rattle that was being rattled by a mad giant who refused to stop.
Roald DahlTag: humor imagery perfect-sentence rattle
«Mientras, seguían abriendo túnel, guiados por las zapas expertas de don Tejón. De repente, éste se detuvo y volviéndose hacia el zorro...
"Amigo zorro", le confesó, "estoy algo preocupado por lo que estamos haciendo".
"¿Y qué estamos haciendo, si puede saberse?", le preguntó don Zorro.
"Pues qué va a ser... ¡robar!", exclamó el tejón.
Don Zorro dejó de cavar y se volvió estupefacto hacia su amigo:
"Mi buen tejón...", comenzó el zorro. "¿Te das cuenta de lo que estás diciendo? Si tus hijos se están muriendo de hambre... ¿es que no piensas ayudarles?"
Don Tejón asintió cabizbajo. "A ti lo que te pasa", continuó el zorro, "es que eres demasiado bueno".
"¿Y qué hay de malo en eso?", le preguntó el tejón.
"¡Nada... sólo que nuestros enemigos son demasiado malos! ¿Te das cuenta de que Benito, Buñuelo y Bufón nos quieren matar?"
"Claro que me doy cuenta...", dijo el tejón con tristeza.
"Nosotros, en cambio, no queremos matarles a ellos...
"¡Dios nos libre!", exclamó el buen tejón.
"Sólo pretendemos", continuó el zorro, "distraerles un poco de comida para alimentarnos nosotros y nuestras familias... ¿Qué hay de malo en ello?"
"Supongo que nada", murmuró el tejón.
"¡Son ellos los que nos hacen la guerra", exclamó el zorro. "¡Nosotros somos animales pacíficos!"»
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