Caroline Framke 8) The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (1977) As with all of DahlвЂ™s best works, Revolting Rhymes is incredibly strange and even disturbing, but often a whole lot of fun. Still: Dahl takes fairy tales to another level in Revolting Rhymes, creating a bloodbath out of CinderellaвЂ™s romance, making Little Red Riding Hood a stone-cold killer, and saddling Snow White with seven gambling-addict dwarfs. This makes sense, since DahlвЂ™s stories already borrow so much from fairy-tale tropes almost all of his childrenвЂ™s stories involve neglected kids, villainous hags, and/or impossibly magical creatures.

But the authorвЂ™s singsong retellings of six famous fairy tales - with all the grotesque details Disney left out - provide an apt showcase for his twisted sense of humor. What was Dahl thinking? - Aja Romano 9) Revolting Rhymes (1982)ДЄ collection of rhyming poems, Revolting Rhymes isnвЂ™t a 'typical' Dahl book. By the time the Vermicious Knids come along, youвЂ™re rooting for the aliens to win and wishing Charlie were still mooning by the chocolate river. CharlieвЂ™s two loving grandmothers from the previous book are abruptly transformed at the beginning of this one into unbearable, demonized examples of every shallow human trait Dahl can think to burden them with. Moving the action as far away from Willy WonkaвЂ™s chocolate factory as possible, Dahl puts his heroes, Charlie Bucket and Willy Wonka, in a great glass elevator for what amounts to an epic road (space) trip with CharlieвЂ™s whole family, complete with all the long-suffering 'are we there yet?' moments such a description implies.Д«ut Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator also contains scathing, largely clichГ©d diatribes against US politics, including a weirdly infantilized look at the US president. Speaking of bitterness, there was no shortage of it on display in the sequel to DahlвЂ™s most famous and most-beloved book. Constance Grady 10) Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972)

Add to that the sheer bitterness of the premise, and you have one of DahlвЂ™s most uneven works. Yeah, that solving-world-hunger angle comes out of nowhere at the end, as does the rest of the storyвЂ™s not-exactly-resolution. Which, GeorgeвЂ™s father proclaims, means George has effectively solved world hunger! It makes her grow, becoming unimaginably large. Gleefully he mixes together curry powder and shampoo and antifreeze and other substances he finds lying around the house - but when he feeds it to his grandmother, it doesnвЂ™t have quite the effect he had in mind. So George decides to shake her up he makes her a dose of medicine. She forces her 8-year-old grandson to make her endless cups of tea and eat cabbage riddled with bugs. GeorgeвЂ™s grandmother has a puckered mouth and teeth stained pale brown.

Roald dahl short stories 6th grdae