Billy and the Minpins (illustrated by Quentin Blake): Roald Dahl. Illustrated by Quentin Blake

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All the things he was allowed to do were boring.All the things he was not allowed to do were exciting.

Whangdoodles are worse,” his mother said, “and Hornswogglers and Snozzwanglers and Vermicious Knids. Little Billy's mum says he must never go out through the garden gate and explore the dark forest beyond.Every now and again his mother would callout to him, saying, “Little Billy, what are you up to in there?” Entering The Forest of Sin is ‘like being among the dead men in an enormous empty green cathedral’. Can you think of similes to describe different places?? (see Resources below) If you were going to measure the height of a Minpin, what equipment would you need? How tall is a Minpin? What percentage of your height is the height of a Minpin? And now Little Billy was kneeling on the chair, gazing with longing through the window at the famous Forest of Sin.

Look at the illustration of Little Billy first entering The Forest of Sin. Think of synonyms to describe the size of the trees and words to describe Little Billy. This was the last work of literature published by Roald Dahl and was published posthumously a year after his death. This novella is a fantastic introduction to the iconic author and is a great way to talk to children about overcoming their fears and helping others as well as exposing them to the language of a master storyteller at work. Links and themes: The Gruncher uses his sense of smell to find humans. What other animals use smell? How are their noses adapted for this? Little Billy was awfully tired of being good’. Write a new story with this as the first line. What happens next?

The Minpins wear clothes that are ‘the sort of thing people wore two or three hundred years ago’. Find out about clothing and fashion from different periods in history. Stop reading the book at the point when Little Billy sees ‘a sight that froze is blood and made icicles in his veins’. Discuss what this might be. Could you describe / draw what Little Billy has seen?

Just then a funny thing happened. Little Billy began to hear somebody whispering in his ear. He knew exactly who it was. It was the Devil. The Devil always started whispering to him when hewas especially bored. Little Billy stares into ‘the everlasting gloom and doom of the forest’. Can you create a picture that uses perspective to show this?

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The author makes up the names of different creatures that might live in The Forest of Sin. Can you make up a name for a new creature? What does it look like? What happens to it?

Draw a map of the tree in which the Minpins live, showing the different rooms that they have inside it. His first children's book was The Gremlins, about mischievous little creatures that were part of RAF folklore. The book was commissioned by Walt Disney for a film that was never made, and published in 1943. Dahl went on to create some of the best-loved children's stories of the 20th century, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda and James and the Giant Peach. The Gruncher makes lots of strange sounds, e.g. Whooshing, swooshing, whiffing. Can you think of any other examples of onomatopoeia? And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.I read it for the first time in first grade. I loved it. I'm fairly certain I read it multiple times between first and third grade. The story is great and the pictures are stunning. Alas, I changed schools in third grade, and then changed again in fifth, and the title of the book was lost. I remembered the story but not what it was called.