Dahl's inimitable style and humor shine in this collection of poems about mischievous and mysterious animals. From Stingaling the scorpion to Crocky-Wock the crocodile, Dahl's animals are nothing short of ridiculous.

Among them is a clever pig with an unmentionable plan to save his own bacon (upon realization that that's the meaning of his life), a flying cow, a giant toad who can jump from England into France and an anteater with an unusually large appetite.

A classic piece of Dahl lunacy. Whether you are 5 or 50 years of age this Dahl classic will have you squirming and tittering. Quentin Blake's wonderful illustrations capture Dahl's beasts and bring them hairily to life.


Book Details:

Title Dirty Beasts
Author Roald Dahl
Reviewed By Purplycookie

3.5 starts, I want to read all Roald's books ❤️
I read this book yesterday when I couldn't sleep. It is written in rhyme and it's such a cute book.

A good book, but I felt it was missing that special something Dahl's books typically have. Having the pictures would have quite possibly added to it. My favourite poem was the last one.

I am currently trying to read all of Roald Dahl's books and re-read a lot of them.


This book was about multiple different "creatures," which were real animals with twists.

"Stingaling the scorpion to Crocky-Wock the crocodile, Dahl's animals are nothing short of ridiculous. A clever pig with an unmentionable plan to save his own bacon and an anteater with an unusually large appetite are among the characters created by Dahl in these timeless rhymes."

This was a short, fast read that I was really entertained by. They were multiple short stories combined to make a book.

Funny at times. I'll read anything Quentin Blake illustrates. And given the new (but actually super obvious since publication) regarding Dahl's dislike of women (see-the terrible book Jennifer made me read 'Switch Bitch'), people of different ethnicities or anyone not white (the twits), fat people (Every.Single.Book), it made reading this kind of gross. I'm not saying I hate all Dahl books now, but it makes you view things from a different perspective.

I'll give Blake five stars, and Dahl two. The book was 27 pages, and this review took longer to write than to read. JK-Eli made me read it twice. So it counts as a read because I had to read it out loud twice and consistently look for a stupid bird.

Another witty and hilarious poetry collection from Roald Dahl!
As with Revolting Rhymes, I find Dahl's poetry a fantastic way to encourage children to read poetry.
However, I find his style repetitive, his rhyming a tad sloppy at times, and some of his language controversial. It seems Dahl has a bit of a dislike towards female characters and larger people - despite my love for many of his children's novels, this doesn't sit well with me and I can see that children nowadays would probably have something to say about it too!

Runot elämän tarkoitusta pohtivasta siasta, joka söikin isäntänsä, ja hemmotellusta pojasta, joka halusi lemmikiksi karhun, mutta saikin muurahaiskarhun, olivat äkkiseltään parhaita. Kyllä annan melkein kaikille Roald Dahlin teoksille 5 tähteä. Tämän kohdalla täytyy antaa erityiskiitos suomentajalle, jolla oli varmaan ollut pähkinää purtavaksi miten suomentaa näitä loppusoinnullisia runoja.

When I was young, I used to read all of Roald Dahl's stories. Some of my personal favorites were Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, The Twits and George's Marvelous Medicine. But another one of my favorite stories from the Roald Dahl collection is Dirty Beasts.

Dirty Beasts is about all kinds of different animals that either scare the humans or eat the humans. Most of these stories are similar to Aesop's Fables, except that they are more darker than Aesop's Fables. These stories try to tell the audience that one should not mistreat animals or else the animals will do horrible things to them such as eat them.

Roald Dahl does an excellent job in being creative and exaggerating about the animals antics such as, herbivores like the Pig and the Anteater eating up humans like they are meat. Quentin Blake's illustrations greatly enhances the mood of the story as the characters are drawn wryly and sometimes eerily, such as the illustrations of the Lion looming over the waiter and the Crocodile coming into the boy and the father's room and smiling eerily and hungrily at them. With Roald Dahl's master storytelling and Quentin Blake's surreal drawings combined, they make Dirty Beasts a funny and scary book at the same time.

Overall, this book is extremely interesting to read because the action of the book is fast-paced and the mysterious antics of the animals will keep the children entertained. Dirty Beasts also provide good morals to each story, even though each moral is a bit mixed. For example, in the Anteater, the moral is to not mistreat your pets, even though at the end of the story, the anteater ends up eating Roy up, which is not really a positive message to inflict on kids since they may think that other domestic animals such as dogs and cats may eat them up if they mistreat them. This is a great book for all ages, but parents may want to check out this book before they decide to read it to their children.

From my Epinions review: http://www99.epinions.com/review/Dirt...

Roald Dahl is one of my favorites. He is very imaginative.

I listened to this and Revolting Rhymes in one audiobook while at my brothers soccer game, but I couldn’t find a version that had both together.

Gross. Scary. A little bit funny in spots.

The Crocodile was especially disturbing. It would give some children nightmares I am sure.
In three of the stories the humans are eaten by the animals. That is frightening.
Parents, make sure you read this before reading it to your children.

Some children might like this book.
Dahl has a strange sense of humor.
Sometimes it seems he likes animals better than people.

Een boek wat op rijm is geschreven. Aan het begin was dit even wennen. Halverwege het boek begon ik de titel van het boek te begrijpen. Het gaat over verschillende beesten die avonturen beleven.
Dit is een boek wat je wel kan voorlezen, maar vind het taalgebruik niet altijd geschikt voor de onderbouw.

Desde la rebelión del cerdo, la poca bondad del cocodrilo, del león, el escorpión, el oso hormiguero, el erizo, la vaca, la rana y el caracol, acabando con el bicho de mi tripa Dahl hace unos cuentos maravillosos, hilarantes y llenos de los sentimientos que nos hace felices.