The Enormous Crocodile: Roald Dahl

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Make some warning posters to encourage people to look out for a nasty crocodile who is trying to eat small children!

The streaming giant Netflix also has productions of Dahl’s work in the pipeline, after a deal in 2021 when the company bought the rights to his entire catalogue of children’s books. Think of synonyms / antonyms for the word ‘Enormous’. How might the story have been different if the title had used one of your antonyms, e.g. the Tiny Crocodile? The Enormous Crocodile is in the style of a picture book in contrast to Roald Dahl's other story books, illustrated by Quentin Blake. It was published on 1 November 1978. The conversation was recorded, with permission from both men, by Barry Joule, who had accompanied his friend Bacon to spend a weekend with the writer. First of all, the crocodile heads to a coconut tree forest, not far away from a town and disguises himself as a small coconut tree with branches and coconuts, hoping to eat a pair of children, Toto and Mary, but is exposed by Humpy Rumpy.Despite the discouragement of another (and smaller) crocodile, the Enormous Crocodile has his stomach set on a meal of children who live in a village not far from the croc’s river. The enormous one also has an inflated image of himself: The illustrations show how close the children come to being the croc’s meal over and over again. Just a mite scary but most children will find it delightful. A recipe outlining how to make your own edible Enormous Crocodile appears in Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes. The Magic Finger is about a young girl who can shoot a beam of electrical energy from her finger. With the help of the Unicorn Theatre, the story will be turned into a dramatic reading aimed at schoolchildren and families.

The crocodiles use words like ‘tough’, ‘chewy’, ‘nasty’, ‘bitter’, ‘juicy’ and ‘yummy’ to describe how children taste. Can you think of other words to describe different tastes?

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The small crocodile objects, because children taste "nasty and bitter" in his opinion compared to fish, and because of what happened the last time the big crocodile tried to eat children. The larger crocodile leaves the big, brown muddy river anyway, and announces his intention to Humpy Rumpy the hippopotamus, Trunky the elephant, Muggle-Wump the monkey and the Roly-Poly Bird. Salman Rushdie, the Booker prize-winning novelist, is among many who have condemned such censorship as “absurd”, while Puffin has been reportedly inundated with complaints from the public. It's the beginning of the year and somehow I find this the right time for some of Roald Dahl's stories. Also, I have quite some catching up to do since I missed out on them when I was a child. The Witches, which runs until January 2024, features three-time Olivier-nominated Katherine Kingsley and Bafta award-winner Daniel Rigby, who starred in the theatre production One Man, Two Guvnors. Next, the crocodile heads to a children's playground located outside an ancient school building and disguises himself as a see-saw, with the help of a large piece wood, hoping to eat a whole class of children, but is exposed by Muggle-Wump.