The Twits (Colour Edition)

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I read a lot of Roald Dahl books as a child, and have read quite a few more to my own children, most recently to my disabled youngest daughter. The Twits was one of those. Mrs. Twit is the hideously ugly, menacing wife of Mr. Twit. She is said to have quite a nice face once, but her ugly thoughts began to show on her face until she was so ugly, you couldn't bear to look at her.

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 you can hardly bear to look at it. Mrs. Twit goes ‘ballooning up’ and flies into the sky. Try to find out what makes her go up… and what makes her come down again? Could you set up a model which shows this process? 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. Thereafter, just from chewing gum,/Miss Bigelow was always dumb,/And spent her life shut up in some/Disgusting sanatorium”

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His relationships with his editors included marked fractiousness on Dahl’s part,” he adds. “Overruling proposed word changes made by the American editor of The Witches, Stephen Roxburgh, Dahl wrote, ‘I don’t approve of some of your Americanisms. This is an English book with an English flavour and so it should remain.’” You only had to mention the word “cacao” to an Oompa-Loompa and he would start dribbling at the mouth” Mrs. Twit removes her glass eye and drops it in her husband's beer mug while he isn't looking. It isn't until he empties the mug that he sees the eye sitting in there, startling him something awful. Mrs. Twit laughs, gloating that this proves she is always watching him. me the Lord Mayor of Baghdad,” she said. “If they don’t have a Lord Mayor, get me the next best thing,” there are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that

by what your daughter Vanessa has learnt this term, this fact alone is more interesting than anything I have taught in the classroomRoald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter of Norwegian descent, who rose to prominence in the 1940's with works for both children and adults, and became one of the world's bestselling authors.

simply cannot tell you how awful they were, and somehow the whole sight was made more grotesque because underneath those frightful scabby bald heads, the bodies were dressed in fashionable and rather pretty clothes. It was monstrous. It was unnatural The rest of the book comprises two unpleasant people being unpleasant to each other in not particularly humorous ways, followed by the addition of monkeys and a magical bird who then outwit them in a rather unconvincing manner. found another aerosol can, NEVERMORE PONKING DEODORANT SPRAY, GUARANTEED, it said, TO KEEP AWAY UNPLEASANT BODY SMELLS FOR A WHOLE DAY. ‘Smelling nice never hurt,’ George said medicine, George told himself. He found it fascinating to stand there watching what it was doing to the old hag. What next? Edits have been made to descriptions of characters’ physical appearances. The word “fat” has been cut from every new edition of relevant books, while the word “ugly” has also been culled, the Daily Telegraph reported.When it came to children’s books, Dennison says Dahl didn’t care what adults thought as long as his target readers were happy. “‘I don’t give a b----r what grown-ups think,’ was a characteristic statement,” Dennison says. “And I’m almost certain that he would have recognised that alterations to his novels prompted by the political climate were driven by adults rather than children, and this always inspired derision, if not contempt, in Dahl. nine-year-old boy who was so enormous he looked as though he had been blown up with a powerful pump Dawtrey, Adam (21 November 2004). "Bigscreen goes Dahl-crazy". Variety . Retrieved 21 January 2012.

Put simply: these may not be the words Dahl wrote. The publishers have given themselves licence to edit the writer as they see fit, chopping, altering and adding where necessary to bring his books in line with contemporary sensibilities. By comparing the latest editions with earlier versions of the texts, The Telegraph has found hundreds of changes to Dahl’s stories. Kirka, Danica. "Critics reject changes to Roald Dahl books as censorship". abc NEWS . Retrieved 3 March 2023. Gender-neutral terms have been added in places – where Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Oompa Loompas were “small men”, they are now “small people”. The Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach have become Cloud-People. Dahl, who died in 1990, is one of the most successful children’s authors of all time. Born in Cardiff in 1916 to Norwegian parents, he was an ace fighter pilot during the Second World War before turning his hand to writing. More than 250 million copies of his books, which include novels such as The Witches, The Twits and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as his memoirs Boy and Going Solo, have been sold worldwide. His stories are characterised by dark humour and unexpected twists. Teavee himself had no less than eighteen toy pistols of various sizes hanging from belts around his body, and every now and again he would leap up into the air and fire off half a dozen rounds from one or another of these weaponsThere’s no way a Chief of Police is going to believe that you are the Head of the Norwegian Police.” “I am very good at persuading people,” she said. “Of course they believed me.” The Smallest Fox drinks the cider) the Smallest Fox had sneaked a jar off the shelf and had taken a gulp flabby folds of fat bulged out from every part of his body, and his face was like a monstrous ball of dough a b c Dellatto, Marisa (20 February 2023). "Roald Dahl Books Get New Edits—And Critics Cry Censorship: The Controversy Surrounding 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory' And More". Forbes. Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. ISSN 0015-6914. Archived from the original on 28 February 2023 . Retrieved 27 February 2023. Tominey, Camilla. "Thank heavens for Queen Camilla, who saved Britain from Roald Dahl censorship". The Daily Telegraph. London, England: Telegraph Media Group. ISSN 0307-1235. OCLC 49632006. Archived from the original on 26 February 2023 . Retrieved 27 February 2023.