Revolting rhymes (1982)
Revolting rhymes is a 1982 fairy tales book written by Roald Dahl.
Roald Dahl takes six fairy tales everyone thinks they know and rewrites them in fast, rude verse. Cinderella, Snow White, Jack and the Beanstalk, Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, and the Three Little Pigs all appear, then swerve hard from the storybook endings. Dahl's rhymes gallop along, gleefully cruel and packed with jokes aimed as much at parents as at children. Quentin Blake's scratchy drawings match the mischief on every page. Short, sharp, and built to be read aloud, ideally by an adult who does not mind the odd wicked laugh.
Quick answers
What is Revolting rhymes about?
Roald Dahl takes six fairy tales everyone thinks they know and rewrites them in fast, rude verse. Cinderella, Snow White, Jack and the Beanstalk, Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, and the Three Little Pigs all appear, then swerve hard from the storybook endings. Dahl's rhymes gallop along, gleefully cruel and packed with jokes aimed as much at parents as at children. Quentin Blake's scratchy drawings match the mischief on every page. Short, sharp, and built to be read aloud, ideally by an adult who does not mind the odd wicked laugh.
When was Revolting rhymes published?
Revolting rhymes was published in 1982.
Who made Revolting rhymes?
Revolting rhymes was written by Roald Dahl.
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A few thoughts on Revolting rhymes
Anyone who likes fairy tales turned inside out has good options. Into the Woods sends the same storybook cast crashing into one another with Sondheim's sly, dark wit. Shrek plays the fractured-fairy-tale game for big laughs. And the comic Fables drops Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, and the rest into a modern world where the happy endings ran out long ago.
Illustrated verse and animal fables built for reading aloud
Revolting Rhymes gallops through six fairy tales in verse built to be read aloud, ideally by someone who enjoys a wicked laugh. Falling Up carries that same appetite for silly, musical verse, while The Gruffalo, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, and The Tale of Benjamin Bunny share its short, illustrated, animal-filled shape, even without Dahl's rougher edges.
Fairy tales bent into something sharper
Revolting Rhymes takes six familiar fairy tales and lets them turn nasty, funny, and a little cruel. Shrek does the same trick for an entire genre of storybook heroes, Fables rebuilds those same characters as exiles in the real world, Hilda folds folklore into a stranger, gentler shape, and The Order of the Stick pokes at fantasy's oldest tropes until they crack.
Satire where the grown-ups are the ones who need to grow up
Dahl aims plenty of these jokes over children's heads and straight at the parents reading along. Blazing Saddles and Animal Farm turn that same trick on genre and politics, The Simpsons has spent decades needling suburban parents more than their kids, Dilbert skewers the adults running the office, and The News Puppets treats the powerful like the punchline they usually are.
Anarchic cartoon chaos where nobody behaves the way the story says they should
Revolting Rhymes lets its fairy tale characters misbehave wildly, and these share that same gleeful disorder. Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish sends its cast on a cheerfully destructive quest, The Fairly OddParents runs on wishes that go hilariously wrong, The Amazing World of Gumball turns an ordinary town upside down for a joke, and Gaston keeps one office in a permanent state of chaos.