Twits are ugly people who do horrible things to each other and others. They are not nice, and they are negative people who have been negative so long that the negativity has made them ugly. And the monkeys are a bit underwritten compared to the title characters. It’s a similar setup to Fantastic Mr Fox except, whereas Boggis, Bunce and Bean are as wonderfully vicious as Mr and Mrs Twit, the monkeys and the Roly-Poly Bird are nowhere near as fully realised as Mr Fox, his family and friends. Roald Dahl Audio Books (10 CD Collection) read by Simon Callow, Miriam Margolyes, Geoffrey Palmer, James Bolam, Andrew Sachs, June Whitfield, Timothy West, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Martin Jarvis There are lighter elements too, because Dahl was so good at this mix of light and shade. Rereading The Twits now, I was reminded that there is also a lesson in it: how we can overcome our differences and achieve common goals by being kind to one another. In the book, a family of former circus monkeys trapped in a cage befriends a treeful of birds, and warns them when they are in danger (and vice versa). After your class have read chapters 22-27, they write a summary of Muggle-Wump’s clever plan. They must remember to include all of the main points.

The book opens with a rather strange tirade against men with beards. But fair enough, it's just a fashion choice. What I found far less palatable as something being channeled into the heads of children was the assertion that ugly people are evil (have ugly thoughts). This is basically an extension of medieval thinking to the end that bad things happen to bad people and if misfortune befalls someone it's safe to assume that they had it coming. Quentin Blake has been drawing ever since he can remember. He taught illustration for over twenty years at the Royal College of Art, of which he is an honorary professor. He has won many prizes, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, the Eleanor Farjeon Award and the Kate Greenaway Medal, and in 1999 he was appointed the first Children’s Laureate. In the 2013 New Year’s Honours List he was knighted for services to illustration.Michael Rosen - writer of the biography "Fantastic Mr Dahl" - tells how the first time he met Roald Dahl, Roald said: The Great Glue Painting Begins The Carpet Goes on the Ceiling The Furniture Goes Up The Ravens Swoop Over The Twits Are Turned Upside Down The Monkeys Escape The Twits Get the Shrinks Kirk DeMicco: Monkey Business". Total Sci-Fi Online. 15 July 2008. Archived from the original on 26 February 2012 . Retrieved 21 January 2012. Roald Dahl Audio Books read by David Walliams, Stephen Fry, Kate Winslet, Chris O'Dowd, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Peter Serafinowicz, Miranda Richardson, Richard Ayoade, Douglas Hodge

My birds and I got into a big literary debate this morning. The book was Dahl's The Twits. Lester the Molestor maintains that I would be more delicious in a pie. My vote is for a hearty bird pie. You are what you eat. Who would want to be me? There is a big hungry gator waiting for us to decide. She said we might settle it over a scrabble game... We lost. It was Lester's fault! He doesn't know enough Q words.... So in typical Roald Dahl fashion they get exactly what is coming to them. They may be caricatures, though they are a very good example to children about why we should never hate. Even though they are horrible, hating them is the wrong thing to do because we are just as bad as them. Toxic people should be removed from our lives. There’s no point hating them, just walk away from them like the animals attempt to do here. Mrs Twit Mrs Twit was no better than her husband. She did not, of course, have a hairy face. It was a pity she didn’t because that at any rate would have hidden some of her fearful ugliness. Take a look at her. Have you ever seen a woman with an uglier face than that? I doubt it. But the funny thing is that Mrs Twit wasn’t born ugly. She’d had quite a nice face when she was young. The ugliness had grown upon her year by year as she got older. Why would that happen? I’ll tell you why. If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it.Roald Dahl's Completely Revolting Recipes: A Collection of Delumptious Favourites. Random House, 2 November 2009. Phil Johnston, the Oscar-nominated helmer of Ralph Breaks the Internet, is directing the project, with Katie Shanahan and Todd Demong as co-directors. Johnston, whose writing credits include Academy Award winner Zootopia, is also penning the script with Meg Favreau and producing alongside Maggie Malone. The animation will be produced at Jellyfish Pictures.