It’s Roald Dahl’s birthday!

Did you know Sept 13 is Roald Dahl’s birthday? The famous author wrote books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG, and the Fantastic Mr. Fox.

What inspired him to write Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? As a boy, he went to a boarding school. At the age of eight, he and four of his friends were in trouble for putting a dead mouse in a jar of gobstoppers (a type of hard candy) at a local shop. Gobstoppers were a favorite treat among British schoolboys. That’s where the everlasting gobstoppers came from that are featured in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Later, he went to a boarding school. At the school, they were invited to trial chocolate bars for Cadbury. He dreamed of inventing a new chocolate bar for Mr. Cadbury and that is the experience that prompted him to write the book.

Roald Dahl was a famous British novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, an ace fighter pilot, and a chocolate historian.

AIM-VA already has Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Danny the Champion of the World, Fantastic Mr. Fox, George’s Marvelous Medicine, The BFG, and The Magic Finger in accessible formats. DBVI, Learning Ally, Bookshare and 3rd party choices have additional books written by Dahl and are also listed on the website. https://aimva.org/get-started/search-for-a-book

For lesson plans and resources on your favorite Roald Dahl book go to: https://www.roalddahl.com/create-and-learn/teach/teach-the-stories

For more information on activities to celebrate his birthday, go to: https://www.roalddahl.com/roald-dahl-day

Take Advantage of These Services that AIM-VA Offers

Ready-to-Go Books

Did you know AIM-VA provides the opportunity for teachers to have reading and textbooks ready-to-go before your students need them? The Ready-to-Go Book Collection initiative allows AIM-VA DRMs to have student books pre-converted and added to the AIM-VA library so accessible versions are ready when needing to order them for students. Please note:

• This initiative does not make an official order for individual students.
• It also does not need to be associated with a student’s STI.
• Note that books will be chopped and rebound for format production.

For more information, go to: https://aimva.org/news-events/initiatives

Curriculum-Based Materials

AIM-VA’s Curriculum-Based Materials ordering system ensures that a student's entire curriculum can be made accessible by giving educators an easy place to order accessible versions of their unit packets, worksheets and tests.

• Paper submissions will be converted to Accessible PDFs.
• Electronic submissions can be converted to formats such as Fully-Accessible PDFs, Structured WORD documents, HTMLs and ePubs.

Gather your Curriculum-Based Materials today and help your students to read accessibly.

For more information, go to: https://aimva.org/news-events/initiatives