"A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men." - quote from Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.
There was plenty of nonsense, and lots of fun, at a local primary school last week.
There were 40 Matildas and plenty of Charlies at St Josephs School, Stratford last Wednesday when pupils, and teachers, dressed up as characters from their favourite Roald Dahl books to mark the famous author's birthday.
With the musical production of Matilda currently playing in Auckland, it was no surprise that many of the school's 240 pupils looked to the plucky schoolgirl for inspiration.
There were also a few dapper Fantastic Mr Foxes roaming around as well, with six-year-old Harry Webb saying he had eaten a duck, a hen AND a turkey for breakfast before school!
Other popular characters included the orange-faced, green haired Oompa Loompas, some witches and Sophie from The BFG. There were also a few BFGs roaming the school grounds with large ears and dream jars.
DID YOU KNOW?
Ten facts about Roald Dahl:
1. He always wrote with an HB pencil on yellow paper.
2. He was a Hurricane fighter pilot during World War II
3. He wrote the screenplays for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Bond movie You Only Live Twice.
4. Roald Dahl created hundreds of new words. Many of them appear in The BFG and the Oxford University Press created the Roald Dahl Dictionary, which features almost 8000 real and imaginary words used by Dahl.
5. The first draft of the Magic Finger was titled The Almost Ducks, and James and the Giant Peach was going to be called James and the Giant Cherry.
6. Roald Dahl could speak English, Norwegian and Swahili (his parents were Norwegian).
7. When Roald Dahl died in 1990, he was buried with some of his favourite things, including a power drill, chocolate, snooker cues and some HB pencils.
8. Roald Dahl was a spy for MI6 and worked alongside Ian Fleming, who later became the creator of James Bond.
9. In 1943 Roald wrote his first official story aimed at children.
It was called The Gremlins and was inspired by his time as a pilot. It was the inspiration behind the Gremlins movie.
10. Roald named one of the main characters in The BFG after his first grandchild, Sophie.
GOBBLEFUNK:
Here are five of Roald Dahl's made up words and their meanings:
Flushbunkled: Caught like a bee in a spider web.
Whoopsy wiffling: Great.
Quogwinkle: An alien from space.
Frothbuggling: Silly.
Biffsquiggled: Confused or puzzled.