The twits Book

Unfortunately, I don't have any rose-tinted glasses for this one.

So, as an adult, all I could think of is, "Dahl, what were you on??" Mr. Twit was a twit. He was born a twit. And, now at the age of sixty, he was a bigger twit than ever. The Twits are ugly people - through and through. They think nothing of animal neglect or outright abuse. They are horrible to each other and everyone around them.

They own a troop of trained monkeys and take particular delight in forcing the poor animals into doing difficult (and painful) tricks.

Well, the final straw landed on the camel's back (so to speak). The monkeys are fed up. They (along with a few friends) seek revenge through creative and inventive methods.

Much like The Magic Finger, the character's vengeance is swift, clever and almost disproportionately brutal. And while it was cute because the animals were inventive and the evil folks certainly got their comeuppance, it still had me raising my eyebrows.

Kids books were so not PG back in the day.

I did, however, enjoy Dahl's level of pettiness. In real life, he hated beards. Thought them dirty and nasty. So, when he really wanted to convey just how disgusting the Twits were, he would throw in details like this: By sticking out his tongue and curling it sideways to explore the hairy jungle around his mouth, he was always able to find a tasty morsel here and there to nibble on.

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