Midnight Feasts

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Lucy Dahl is 51 now, but she still bursts with childlike glee when she recalls her father's "midnight feasts."

He'd wake the kids up in the middle of the night and pile them into the car – which was full of hot chocolate and cookies – and drive them up the road in the English countryside where they lived.

Then they'd walk in to the woods in their pajamas to look for badgers.

"You couldn't talk, and he'd say, 'Nobody move! And if you've got an itch, blow on it. Try and hold your breath, try not to breathe!' " Lucy recalls. "And sure enough, Mr. Badger would come prowling out and walk right past us. It was incredibly exciting."

Only once they had seen an animal could they tuck in to their sweet feast.

"And then," Lucy says, "we'd all go home, back to bed, delighted."