Twits

ANNOTATION

The misadventures of two terrible old people who enjoy playing nasty tricks and are finally outwitted by a family of monkeys.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Mr. and Mrs. Twit hate almost everything, including their trained monkeys, the Muggle -Wumps. But now the Muggle-Wumps want revenge. Roald Dahl is one of the most beloved storytellers of all time, and his books have been children￯﾿ﾽs favorites for generations. Puffin is proud to offer a strong new look for nine of our classic Roald Dahl titles. The distinctive cover treatment, with new art by Quentin Blake, will make these books easily recognizable. In addition, Quentin Blake￯﾿ﾽs funny, quirky illustrations now appear in all of the books. So turn the page and you￯﾿ﾽll be sure to have a Dahl-ectable summer!

FROM THE CRITICS

Karla Kuskin

Mr. Dahl has written a few wonderfully funny and imaginative books. ''The Twits'' is not one of them. The movement of the plot is capricious. And the humor dwells on rather elementary physical jokes, only a few of which are funny. Basically this reads like a story reeled out at bedtime by a talented but distracted uncle who wants to pack the children off quickly. It needs pruning, paring, sharpening and some bolting down in order to go public and add luster to the already lustrous, and funny, name of Roald Dahl. -- New York Times

Children's Literature - Judy Silverman

The Twits-what a very unpleasant couple! Mr. and Mrs. Twit have nothing good to say about each other or anyone else. And we all know what happens when you are horrible to everyone -you begin to look as horrible as you are. Dahl has spared us nothing in his description of the couples' looks, smells, and actions. And Blake matches him with wonderfully nasty illustrations. To give just one exaample of Twit-like behavior, once Mr. Twit painted the branches of his big dead tree with horrible sticky stuff in order to catch birds for his dinner. When four little boys climbed the tree, they got stuck by the seats of their pants! Fortunately they realized they could escape, but they had to go home "with their bare bottoms winking at the sun." The Twits used to be monkey trainers, and a family of monkeys named Mugglewumps still lives in their garden. Now the Mugglewumps have decided to rebel. Monkeyshines and highjinks ensue, and the Twits get their just reward. Fun to read. 1998 (orig.

School Library Journal

Gr 2-4-Actor Simon Callow tackles one of Roald Dahl's most gruesome stories (Puffin, pap. 1998) with relish in this gleefully naughty audiobook. Mr. and Mrs. Twit are two of the most disgusting, nasty, and horrid characters in children's literature, from their repulsive looks (the story opens with a long, detailed description of Mr. Twit's unkempt beard) to the mean and horrible tricks they play on one another (Mrs. Twit enjoys hiding her glass eyeball in unexpected places and lacing the spaghetti with worms; Mr. Twit works for weeks to convince his wife that she has "The Shrinks"). Callow captures the dry humor of Dahl's narrative voice perfectly, and creates appropriately nasty voices for Mr. and Mrs. Twit as well. Unfortunately, the thick accents and loud tones of these voices often mean that the dialogue is difficult to understand. Still, Callow's able narration brings Dahl's ironic sensibilities to life, and a sense of satisfaction is inevitable when the terrible Twits come to an appropriately gruesome end.-Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Maryland School for the Deaf, Columbus

AudioFile