Roald Dahl's secret to a good children's book: Make sure it 'enthrals the child'

Roald Dahl, the author of children's classics such as "James and the Giant Peach" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," believed in stories that enthralled young readers, getting them to love books for a lifetime.

He put those thoughts in a letter sent more than 30 years ago to a university student who had written to him on a whim. The author's letter, written a year before his death in 1990, sold at auction Tuesday for 2,200 pounds -- just over $3,000, according to Hansons Auctioneers in the United Kingdom. "Never shelter children from the world," Dahl wrote. "The 'content' of any children's book is of no importance other than that it enthrals the child -- and thus it teaches or seduces him or her to 'like' books and to become a fit reader -- which is vital if that child is going to amount to anything in later life.