by Roald Dahl
First sentence: “What a lot of hairy-faced men there are around nowadays.”
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Content: This one’s slim, with lots of illustrations and simple words. It’s perfect for those younger readers who want an introduction to Dahl and for reluctant readers. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

For the record: I’m beginning to think that Dahl wrote kids books so he could be grumpy about parenting and social trends and disguise it as “humor” for kids.

This time, he’s upset about beards, about cruel adults (he’s always upset about cruel adults; I also think he thinks most adults are cruel), and about the mistreatment of animals (which is a new one).

The plot: the Twits are horrible people. They’re ugly (as are all horrible people in Dahl’s books), they treat each other horribly, they treat their pet monkeys abominably. and then they get their comeuppance. End of story.

And yet, it was funny. The Twits’ pranks on each other were pretty silly and (mostly) harmless. The way the monkeys got back was absolutely brilliant (if implausible), and I admit, I did laugh. (K on the other hand, would HATE this book. She has a real problem with humor at the expense of other people.)

I’ll be interested to see what the kids think of it at book group.