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Roald Dahl and Philosophy: A Little Nonsense Now and Then. Edited by Jacob M. Held. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
Reviewed by Joli Barham McClelland
The title of this book, akin to that of Held's edited collection Dr. Seuss and Philosophy: Oh, the Thinks You Can Think (2011), seeks to bring farreaching philosophical ideas into the mainstream consciousness through their application to popular children's literature. Dahl, a veritable giant in the realm of children's literature, offers a lighthearted touch on numerous challenging themes-concepts of hunger, horror, punishment, friendship, and even existence itself-within his books. And it is to these difficult themes that the authors of Roald Dahl and Philosophy turn in their examination of the interplay between Dahl's works and a wide range of philosophical ideas.
Given Dahl's lighthearted yet occasionally morbid touch, it is only slightly jarring when, in his introduction to the volume, Held begins with the subject of suicide. Dahl's works, as Held notes, are well known for their "love of life and a celebration of childhood," and it is from this perspective, as a means of questioning what makes life worth living, that Held launches the volume (1). Praising Dahl for presenting children with such realworld scenarios as hunger, poverty, and cruelty, Held underlines the ways in which stories such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda model useful coping skills for children in a world that is often unfair and unjust. Going so far as to malign what he considers bad children's writing for its promotion of "flawed ideals and false hope,"...