Going Solo by Roald Dahl (Booktalk)

[This booktalk is for designated for a high school audience.]

Did you read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach when you were younger? Those were written by Roald Dahl, a brilliant writer and a fascinating man. He was also a British fighter pilot in World War II, and he had many near-death experiences in the war, including a very serious plane crash very close to enemy territory, one so bad that doctors thought he'd never see again. Luckily, they were wrong. He recovered, but while he was blind he had a huge crush on the nurse who helped him. You have to read it just for that part. It's both sweet and hilarious.

No one can write about scary, surreal, or bizarre experiences with the same dry humor as Roald Dahl. Before the war started, Dahl was employed by an oil company and he was sent to work in East Africa, part of the British empire at the time. He met so many eccentric characters there: people who exercised naked on a ship; a man who thrived on catching deadly snakes while calling them sweet names (he loved the snakes and wasn't cruel to them); a lady who wouldn't touch food with her hands at all, ever. He knew he'd ever encounter such types ever again, and he never did. There's something very strange and wonderful about being in a far away country, one very different from your home country.

I loved the postcards, telegrams, and photographs included which document his time in Africa and his time spent in the war. "One gasps at the waste of life"(83), he tells us. Yet Dahl survived, and he left this wonderful biography for us.

Going Solo by Roald Dahl. 210 pages. 1986. Booktalk to high school, adult. Great read-aloud.

The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steven Sheinkin (Booktalk)

Imagine you are in the Navy, and it is your job to handle explosives: big explosives, lots of them, and quickly. You load them onto the Navy's ships, and you have had no real training in safety measures. Scary job, huh? If those explosives and munitions explode, you are dead. There is zero room for error.

Page 35 in The Port Chicago 50.

That was the job of some African-American Navy men in World War II. They got the lousy jobs in segregated units, and this had been a sad, ongoing fact in our country's history. It was unfair and prejudiced, yet many black men still wanted to serve their country, even if meant digging ditches, carrying explosives, working in the kitchen, and cleaning bathrooms and kitchens. They did not get the more "glamorous" jobs given to white men, and the only factor was their skin color.

But let's get back to the explosives at the Port Chicago base. I have some bad news: want to guess what it is? The explosives did blow up, killing 320 men, injuring almost 400 men, destroying the pier and the ships in the area.

The devastation was unbelievable and tragic. Lives were lost and ruined. Obviously, many of the men killed were the African Americans who handled the explosives. All the witnesses died.

Have you heard the expression "to add insult to injury"? What does it mean? {Let a student explain.} The surviving men were being asked to do exactly the same work in a different location: handling and loading ammunition - highly explosive - onto ships. I don't blame them for not wanting to do it, but the Navy did, and it accused them of mutiny, a deeply serious charge. Read all about their fight in The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steven Sheinkin. Booktalk to grades 5-12. National Book Award finalist.