Unknown (main narrator, possibly Aaron Tracy)

Here he is on Pebble Mill from the BBC.

I do wonder if all this insecurity about becoming a children's author actually has a positive effect on Dahl's writing.

He's so scared of being perceived as Dr. Seuss that he refuses to abandon his sophisticated adult themes.

The violence, the grotesquerie, the corruption, all those delicious elements from his adult writing, he's going to transplant them right into his children's stories, which is a big part of what makes these books work so well.

The darkness doesn't disappear.

It just finds a new home.

This is such an important lesson that so few writers seem to have gleaned.

I bought a ton of books to read to my kids, written by authors and comedians I love who are making their first stab at writing for children.

In these books, all of them totally abandon the qualities that make me like them so much.

The only exception is Fran Liebowitz, who managed to write a kid's book that still has all of her hilarious crankiness and cynicism.

Now, while Dahl repeats over and over that writing for kids is just as challenging as writing for adults, he surprisingly downplays any deeper meaning to his work.

There are very few messages in these books of mine, he says.

They are there simply to turn the child into a reader of books.

I don't really buy that.

A lot of great writers like to downplay their intentions and messages.

I remember sitting in a small workshop when I was starting out.

Aaron Sorkin came to speak.

I nervously raised my hand and asked about the themes I thought I spotted in his new show.

He basically shot back that he's really lazy and watches a lot of baseball on TV, and sort of implied that I was seeing more in his script than he intended.

Which may be true.