

There is the little boy who is so jealous of his baby sister that he wishes for the wolves to get her - all the while acting like a bratty baby in order to get as much attention as possible. And there is the boy who delights in frightening his little sister, each fright more horrible than the last, culminating in the purchase of a snake to truly terrify her. The new pet grows and grows and grows...with some very interesting results. There's a little girl who refuses to eat fruit, and one day she finds herself in the body of a fruit bat. And there is, perhaps, the brattiest child of all - a horrifically shrill little girl who always gets what she wants - until one day she finds that she really, really doesn't want what she gets. The parents in these stories are rather dim-witted, for the most part, and I found myself wishing there were a special wing of the Hothell reserved just for them.
The publisher recommends this for ages four to eight, but I think that younger children might not really appreciate the humor here, and the voices are sometimes rather scary. I think eight to twelve is a more appropriate age range, and my ten and twelve-year-olds enjoyed this immensely on a recent long car ride (as did my husband and I). Fans of Hilaire Belloc's cautionary tales will doubtless enjoy this, and I highly recommend the audio version - the vivid narration made us all feel as though we'd seen a film, rather than listened to a book. It would be fun to play a few of these stories for some children on a dark, Halloween night. Heh heh heh.
Grizzly Tales: Nasty Little Beasts - "Cautionary Tales for Lovers of Squeam" (Parts 1 and 2) by Jamie Rix; narrated by Rupert Degas (Orion Audiobooks, 2007)
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