In honor of Thanks­giv­ing and because she’s just gen­er­ally awe­some, Beth Revis is host­ing an amaz­ing give­away at the moment, whereby in appre­ci­a­tion for all the amaz­ing sto­ries out there, book blog­gers tell every­one the one book they are really grate­ful for (and also hope to win an amaz­ing price in the process!)

My choice might not be quite what you were expect­ing. There are so many books that I truly love and will be eter­nally grate­ful for, books by extremely tal­ented authors such Patrick Ness, Stephanie Perkins, Michelle Mago­rian, Melina Mar­chatta, Markus Zusak, Mar­i­anne Cur­ley, Philip Pull­man, J.K Rowl­ing… the list is endless.

But, I can only pick one and so I fig­ured it’s only right to go right back to the begin­ning (as it were), so my choice for the one book I am most grate­ful for is:

Roald Dahl’s Revolt­ing Rhymes and Dirty Beasts

My father would read to me every night before I went bed, I would refuse to go to sleep in fact, until he had. There were other books of course, but this was my absolute favourite bed time story and I still love them to this day. Aside from just being fan­tas­ti­cally writ­ten by the man him­self, there are a lot of spe­cial mem­o­ries wrapped up in these short sto­ries and hav­ing my father read to me is where my love of books comes from. One of my favourites was, and still is, Dahl’s ver­sion of Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood — seems I liked a kick-ass hero­ine even from a young age!

As soon as Wolf began to feel
That he would like a decent meal,
He went and knocked on Grandma’s door.
When Grandma opened it, she saw
The sharp white teeth, the hor­rid grin,
And Wolfie said, “May I come in?”
Poor Grand­mamma was ter­ri­fied,
“He’s going to eat me up!” she cried.

And she was absolutely right.
He ate her up in one big bite.
But Grand­mamma was small and tough,
And Wolfie wailed, “That’s not enough!
I haven’t yet begun to feel
That I have had a decent meal!”
He ran around the kitchen yelp­ing,
“I’ve got to have a sec­ond help­ing!”
Then added with a fright­ful leer,
“I’m there­fore going to wait right here
Till Lit­tle Miss Red Rid­ing Hood
Comes home from walk­ing in the wood.”
He quickly put on Grandma’s clothes,
(Of course he hadn’t eaten those).
He dressed him­self in coat and hat.
He put on shoes, and after that
He even brushed and curled his hair,
Then sat him­self in Grandma’s chair.
In came the lit­tle girl in red.
She stopped. She stared. And then she said,

“What great big ears you have, Grandma.”
“All the bet­ter to hear you with,” the Wolf replied.
“What great big eyes you have, Grandma.”
said Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood.
“All the bet­ter to see you with,” the Wolf replied.

He sat there watch­ing her and smiled.
He thought, I’m going to eat this child.
Com­pared with her old Grand­mamma
She’s going to taste like caviar.

Then Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood said, “But Grandma,
what a lovely great big furry coat you have on.”

“That’s wrong!” cried Wolf. “Have you for­got
To tell me what BIG TEETH I’ve got?
Ah well, no mat­ter what you say,
I’m going to eat you any­way.”
The small girl smiles. One eye­lid flick­ers.
She whips a pis­tol from her knick­ers.
She aims it at the creature’s head
And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead.
A few weeks later, in the wood,
I came across Miss Rid­ing Hood.
But what a change! No cloak of red,
No silly hood upon her head.
She said, “Hello, and do please note
My lovely furry wolf­skin coat.”

What book are you grate­ful for?