The Man in St. Ives
“St. Ives” is one of the shortest poems in the collection. It is about the narrator meeting a man while on his way to St. Ives who has seven wives. Why? Because it’s more fun than having just one.
Mister Rat
Mister Rat is a new character introduced into an old fable. He is a ratty little opportunities who plays both ends against the middle interfering on the part of both participants in the famous race between “The Tortoise and the Hare.” In an attempt to craft himself an advantage over his rival, the tortoise engages the rat to build a powerful little car tiny enough to hide beneath his shell. Mister Rat then proceeds to feed this information to the hare.
Miss McPhee
Miss McPhee is the gym teacher. Bill Smith is one of her students whom she keeps after class for special lessons in which she teaches him some very special things involving holding him here and holding him there. And then, after that, she teaches him how to wrestle. Bill is very, very grateful to have a teacher like Miss McPhee!
“A Little Nut-Tree”
Another very short poem is narrated by a young girl about the little nut-tree which, alas, fails to bear any fruit. When she begs it to change this situation, the nut-tree turns surprisingly mouthy. Bad attitude there.
Crocky
Crocky is a crocodile who goes to visit a dentist who instructs him to start with the back molars. The dentist is too terrified to get close enough to do any work at all, much less on the teeth farthest to the back inside the animal’s grinning mouth. Turns out that Crocky isn’t dangerous at all because he’s the harmless pet of a woman with a gorgeous smile
Wilhelm Grimm
One-half of the famous brother team responsible for popularizing fairy tales makes a cameo appearance in Dahl’s version of “Hansel and Gretel.” About two-thirds of the way through—just after Hansel has been captured by old lady in the woods, the narration is interrupted by a parenthetical aside which explains how this version won’t be as gory as the original by the Grimms before launching into a commentary attacking the kind of parenting which would think such stories are appropriate for reading to kids as bedtime tales. The commentary ends with a personal attack upon the Wilhelm Grimm’s sense of humor: “There’s not a scrap of it in him.”
