Roald Dahl children include "James and the Giant Peach", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "Matilda", "The Witches", "Fantastic Mr Fox", "The BFG", "The Twits" and "George's Marvellous Medicine". His adult works include "Tales of the Unexpected". Roald Dahl was born in 1916 at Villa Marie, Fairwater Road, in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales, to Norwegian parents, Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Dahl ("née" Hesselberg). Dahl's father had emigrated to the UK from Sarpsborg in Norway, and settled in Cardiff in the 1880s. His mother came over and married his father in 1911. Dahl was named after the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen. His first
Roald Dahl language was Norwegian, which he spoke at home with his parents and his sisters Astri, Alfhild and Else. Dahl and his sisters were raised in the Lutheran faith, and were baptised at the Norwegian Church, Cardiff, where their parents worshipped. In 1920, when Dahl was three years old, his seven-year-old sister, Astri, died from appendicitis. Weeks later, his father died of pneumonia at the age of 57. With the option of returning to Norway to live with relatives, Dahl's mother decided to remain in Wales. Her husband Harald had wanted their children to be educated in British schools, which he