Dirty Beasts

Written by Roald Dahl, Dirty Beasts is a collection of poems accompanied by illustrations from Quentin Blake. Roald Dahl was my absolute favourite author growing up, so a fair few of his wickedly funny tales are to be found in my library. 

Dirty Beasts features a short collection of poems starring a very clever pig, a nasty crocodile, Stingaling the Scorpion, a terrible Lion, a starved giant ant-eater, a prickly porcupine, a flying cow, a magic toad, and a nasty tummy beast. 

Now, while Roald Dahl’s books are filled with nasty and sometimes macabre stories of children suffering punishment or some form of demise, there are morals to the stories he tells. For example, in Dirty Beasts children are advised to look before they sit, lest they have their rumps punished by a porcupine, beware of animals with large and shining teeth, and to generally be good. 

Dahl’s humour is very wicked with a few macabre undertones in his writing, but I personally think that these tales are wonderful to read to children because a) they are in poem form, which decrease the sinisterness a bit, and b) there are morals to the stories. When you think about it, some of the really old fairytales and fables are a whole lot worse! 

An easy read filled with punishments, nasty animals, magic, rhyme, and morals, Dirty Beasts is a wonderful little collection of poems that I found very entertaining as a child and still continue to as an adult.