Roald Dahl’s Dirty Beasts is a book of nine rhyming animal poems for 6 year olds, and most of the animals in it are very hungry indeed.<\/p>\n
It starts with a pig. A very clever pig, who has read every book there is and can do sums in his head. Then one night he works out what farmers keep pigs for (bacon, chops and sausages), and things go badly for the farmer.<\/p>\n
That’s the pattern, more or less. A crocodile likes six children for his Saturday lunch, with mustard on the boys. A lion turns down a lovely steak because he’d much rather have you. A spoilt boy called Roy gets a starving ant-eater as a pet and refuses to feed it.<\/p>\n
Not every beast is out for blood, though. There’s a cow who grows gold and silver wings and does loop-the-loops on live TV. There’s a magic toad who jumps fifty miles at a time. And there’s a girl who sits on a porcupine and has to have the prickles pulled out by the dentist (upside down, in the dentist’s chair).<\/p>\n
The rhymes are the whole joy of it. They bounce along and they’re made for reading aloud. Each poem saves its punchline for the very last line, so don’t be surprised if your reader starts shouting the last word before you get there! The grown-ups are just as daft as the animals too.<\/p>\n
Worth knowing before you hand it over. People really do get eaten here. The pig eats Farmer Bland from head to toe, and the ant-eater gobbles up Roy’s aunt and then eyes up Roy for pudding. It’s all meant to be funny, but a child who worries about that sort of thing may not find it funny.<\/p>\n
A couple of the poems also show their age. The flying cow calls a man from Afghanistan a “silly foreign freak”, and a whole French town chases the toad with carving knives because the French eat frogs’ legs. You might want to read those two together and have a chat about them.<\/p>\n
If your reader loves a gruesome giggle, though, this is a real treat. Who doesn’t secretly enjoy a crocodile creeping up the stairs at bedtime?<\/p>\n
If this one goes down well, try Revolting Rhymes next. It’s Dahl doing the same thing to fairy tales, and Cinderella’s night at the ball doesn’t go the way anyone expects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Roald Dahl’s Dirty Beasts is a book of nine rhyming animal poems for 6 year olds, and most of the animals in it are very hungry indeed. It starts with a pig. A very clever pig, who has read every book there is and can do sums in his head. Then one night he works […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12996,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":8505,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Revolting Rhymes","lr_seo_hook":"Nine gleefully gruesome animal poems where the beasts usually win."},"book_tag":[23],"age_group":[31],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[842],"class_list":["post-7215","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-funny-books","age_group-books-for-6-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-roald-dahl"],"yoast_title":"Dirty Beasts by Roald Dahl | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Nine gleefully gruesome animal poems where the beasts usually win. For ages 6+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n