World Book Day 2016: The Great Mouse Plot

‘You had the idea – so you can be the one to put the mouse in the jar.’

This is a true story.

Every day the boy walks past a sweet shop filled with jars of delicious gobstoppers and sticky treacle toffees. But there is one terrible problem. The shop is owned by Mrs Pratchett, a skinny old hag with filthy finger nails. She is so mean that the boy decides to trick her – and he’s got the perfect plan…

Did you know that this boy grew up to become the writer Roald Dahl?

Discover secrets about the World’s Number 1 Storyteller and start your Roald Dahl 100 celebrations in 2016 with this very special World Book Day story!

Sitting in a hut at the bottom of his garden, surrounded by odd bits and pieces such as a suitcase (used as a footrest), his own hipbone (which he'd had replaced) and a heavy ball of metal foil (made from years' worth of chocolate wrappers), Roald Dahl wrote some of the world's best-loved stories including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits, The Witches, The BFG, Fantastic Mr Fox, James and the Giant Peach and lots more. Quentin Blake is one of Britain's most successful illustrators. He has illustrated nearly three hundred books and he was Roald Dahl's favourite illustrator. He has won many awards including the Whitbread Award and the Kate Greenaway Medal and taught for over twenty years at the Royal College of Art. In 1999 he became the first ever Children's Laureate and in 2013 he was knighted in the New Year's Honours.