The advantage of going home is being able to grab old childhood novellas off the shelf and stuff them into bookrace. In this case, Boy is quite a good book, a touching and darkly humorous collection of anecdotes about Dahl's childhood in his massive Norwegian family in England, the tragedy of losing his sister and father in a less confident era of medicine, magical summers in the Oslofjord, and above all, English boarding schools. Dahl's education was a nightmare of canings from cruel figures of authority, from the headmaster on down to prefects. Somehow, Dahl kept his natural contrary nature, taking pleasure in the little things like taste-testing chocolates (inspiration for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), sports, or photography. There's of prelude to the future African adventurer and WW2 fighter pilot, but little that would make one think that this is the childhood of a beloved children's author--except for the crystal clear quality of the reminiscences.