The Minpins Book by Roald Dahl
Book Review : The Minpins Book by Roald Dahl
Someday someone will write a book that begins with a mother forbidding her child to enter the deep dark woods and ends with that child achieving incredible success without ever setting a toe in the forbidden forest. But not this book. Here, Billy’s mom issues a few scary warnings about the woods to her son–”Beware! Beware! The Forest of Sin! None come out, but many go in!”–turns her back for a second, and the next thing you know the devil shows up and whispers something to Bobby about wild strawberries. Blammo! Guess where Billy goes–straight to the forbidden forest, of course. At this point, if you are reading the story aloud to your child, you may think there’s a parable on the way. But just when you might expect to run into monsters named Lust, Avarice and Three-Toed Sloth (okay, maybe not Lust), a real monster comes careening along and you realize that this story is just a fairy tale after all–and quite a lovely one at that.
The Minpins taps into the powerful, wonderful child’s fantasy of discovering a hidden civilization of tiny folk that accepts and honours him or her. The very best part of this fairy tale is the denouement, where Billy receives the gift of nightly escape on the wings of a swan. One of Roald Dahl’s only picture books–with fabulously crosshatched pen-and-ink illustrations by Patrick Benson–The Minpins is superb for reading aloud to children. And it culminates in a sentence or two of advice that your children just might remember for the rest of their lives.
The Minpins (often misquoted as The Minipins) is a book by Roald Dahl with illustrations by Patrick Benson. It was published in 1991, a few months after Dahl’s death in November 1990, and it is believed to be the author’s final contribution to literature after an illustrious career spanning almost half a century.
Synopsis : The Minpins Book by Roald Dahl
Little Billy is forbidden by his mother to enter the Forest of Sin behind his house. She tells him of the Whangdoodles, Hornswogglers, Snozzwanglers and Vermicious knids that live in the forest. Worst of all is the Terrible Bloodsuckling Toothpluckling Stonechuckling Spittler, which chases its prey while glowing clouds of hot smoke pour out of his nose, and then swallows them up in one gulp. Little Billy doesn’t believe his mother, and the Devil tells Little Billy that the monsters don’t exist, and there is a plethora of luscious wild strawberries in the forest. Soon, Little Billy is walking through the forest when he hears something coming after him, and runs to escape it. As he looks back, he sees puffs of orange-red smoke catching up with him. He escapes what he is sure must be the Spittler by climbing up a tree as high and as fast as he can. When he comes to a rest, he notices windows opening all over the branches, and discovers a whole city of little people, the Minpins, living inside the tree. The leader of the Minpins tells Little Billy that the monster waiting under the tree is the Red-Hot Smoke-Belching Gruncher, who grunches up everything in the forest. It seems that there is no way for Little Billy to safely get down from the tree and return home. But upon learning of the close friendship between the Minpins and birds, Little Billy devises a plan to rid the forest of the Gruncher: Little Billy flies on the back of a swan and use his scent to lure the Gruncher into a lake. The water of the lake puts out the fire in the Gruncher’s belly, killing him. The Minpins are grateful to Little Billy for ridding the forest of their tormentor. They reward him by sending the swan to serve as Little Billy’s own personal transport every night, which he uses to explore the world and to continue his newfound friendship with the Minpins.
ISBN Number : The Minpins Book by Roald Dahl
* ISBN 0-670-84168-4 (hardcover, 1991)
* ISBN 0-14-056821-2 (paperback, 2001)
* ISBN 0-14-054970-6 (paperback, 1994)
* ISBN 0-14-054371-6 (paperback, 1993)
