The Twits by Roald Dahl

 

What is your favorite Roald Dahl story, book, or movie?  I never read or watched anything by Roald Dahl until I was an adult.  Charlie and the Chocolate Family was a delight that I didn’t discover until I was an adult.

 For our April Rogue Book Club selection, The Twits by Roald Dahl was chosen as Dahl has been a recent source of controversy surrounding the edits to his classic works.  I thought I had not read The Twits before, but as I got into it, I realized that I had listened to it on audiobook with my kids when they were younger.  I love the dark humor of Roald Dahl as do my kids.  My son Daniel has his complete collection so I borrowed The Twits from him to read.

 I loved the pictures by Quentin Blake.  This is a short and simple story of a couple in town that no one likes because they are completely despicable.  The book is a series of stories of how Mr. Twit and Mrs. Twit play mean tricks on each other trying to one up each other.  They also keep caged monkeys, the Muggle-Wumps, that must stand on their heads all day.  The Muggle-Wumps plan a trick of their own to finally get even with the Twits. 

 We had a good discussion about the edits to Roald Dahl books and censoring books in general.  It seems a lot of it is that parents don’t want to sit down and read with their kids to see what they are reading and have discussions with them about what they are reading.  The changes that were made to this book in particular were puzzling.  The original text has Mrs. Twit walking with a cane because it is supposed she has warts on her feet and that cane is used to beat children and small animals.  The part about warts was taken out, but the cane for beating children and small animals was left in. What is the point?  I am in favor of leaving it the way the Roald Dahl originally wrote it.

 This is a quick and humorous book.