The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl is the story of little Lucy and the bad Greggs family. . . The Magic Finger is something I've been able to do all my life. I can't tell you just how I do it, because I don't even know myself. But it always happens when I get cross . . . and suddenly a sort of flash comes out of me, a quick flash, like something electric. It jumps out and touches the person who has made me cross . . . "A true genius . . . Roald Dahl is my hero" David Walliams Roald Dahl, the best-loved of children's writers, was born in Wales of Norwegian parents. After school in England he went to work for Shell in Africa. He began to write after "a monumental bash on the head", sustained as an RAF pilot in World War II. Roald Dahl died in 1990. Quentin Blake is one of the best-known and best-loved children's illustrators and it's impossible now to think of Roald Dahl's writings without imagining Quentin Blake's illustrations.