The Twits Next Door

The Twits #2

by Greg James, Chris Smith

A new classic from the world of Roald Dahl!

Mr. and Mrs. Twit are just about as nasty and revolting as two people can get. The only thing that brings the two of them pleasure is playing pranks on one another. But, when a new family called the Lovelies move in next door, with their lively 10-year-old twins, they teach The Twits to stop being so mean and horrible and they all live happily ever after . . .  Ha! Not really. The Twits HATE the Lovelies.  

But how far will The Twits go to rid themselves of their horribly nice new neighbours? And what happens when these new neighbours, who are armed with utter loveliness, start to fight back?

Genres: Middle Grade, Fiction, Childrens

256 pages, Hardcover

First published August 14, 2024

Reviews

[Rachel Morris]

Read this with my six year old as I absolutely loved Roald Dahl as a child, we both really enjoyed it.

[Lisa Jenkins]

Loved reading this with my daughter.

[Jenny Cooper]

A really good book to read with your children. I personally didn't enjoy it as much as the original Twits but my 7 year old son says it's better, so there you go. I will definitely read some more Greg James/Chris Smith books with him.

[lula lina ୨ৎ (klara's version)]

2 stars .ᐟ 🪳
╰┈➤ no spoilers !


°•*⁀➷ my thoughts !

I adored Roald Dahl as a kid. I still love his books now and I can't wait to read his adult stuff in the future!
When I saw this I thought to myself: This is gonna be bad and it was bad but not as bad as I was expecting it to be.

Roald Dahl wrote children's books but that doesn't mean that adults can't enjoy them. Far from it, actually. I think that books like Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are suitable for all ages (well, 12-100+).
But this book is very much for kids. It's so in your face about it as well. But I'll get to that a little later.


°•*⁀➷ the good !

They referenced the best line in The Twits 🥹🥹
I adore it when pastiche authors do that - they pay homage to the author who wrote the original material. They also referenced The Tiger Who Came to Tea and The Importance of Being Earnest and they referenced the original book a few times which I liked.
I also really appreciate how they didn't assassinate the characters of Mr and Mrs Twit. They stayed horrible and I really, really like that! I do like the moral of the story that some people do just suck.
Also, I liked the writing style a lot. Well, the fourth wall breaking stuff and talking to the reader. Everything else was about the writing was... eh. The design of everyone but the Twits where nice as well as the background.



°•*⁀➷ the bad !

The repetition of the word "lovely". I really did not like that. At all.
It was also very gross. And there is a time and place for gross humor - absolutely! I'm not a fan of that sort of humor and I never have been but the original story did it very well. This book overdid it. The whole wasps in the toilet thing?? Ew ew ew ew ew ew.
Also the really, really weird smilies and alliterations beacuse what do you mean that Ruff and Tumble where creeping around "like a giraffe with a sore throat" like ??? Huh ???



°•*⁀➷ the ugly !

This isn't that ugly but they are the biggest complaints I have about the book.

I. The Illustrations
You can't have Roald Dahl without Quentin Blake. I'm sorry but you just can't. Argue with the wall. And while I understand that Quentin Blake is very, very old now and it wouldn't have been the same even if he did do the illustrations – it doesn't mean I can't be unhappy about it!! I found the designs of the Twits overly gross but other than that, all the other illustrations where fine.

II. The Timeline
So this takes place AFTER the original book, right? Right???
Well, if you read the book it's heavily implied that they died due to The Shrinks so how are they here now?? But then at the end it mentions that time when Mr. Twit glued monkeys to a tree and that happens in the original book. So??? Is it a prequel or sequel? Where does it fit into the timeline ???
Now, I'm just a nerd and this isn't that big of an issue but still!!!

III. The Wasps
I'm not going to talk about it that much but did we really need all that mentioning of... Mr Twit's... behind??? With the illustration too?? I can't I-I just can't...


°•*⁀➷ the loss of magic !

It's not a complaint but it is something I want to point out just like I do with every pastiche and every re-creation of something great and I know that Roald Dahl isn't here anymore and hasn't been for a long, long time and I know that we are never getting another one like him ever. But I can still talk about it.
Roald Dahl was magic and this book made me realise that. He had the magic touch.
And I miss him the same way I miss Vincent van Gogh.
This story just didn't have that feel and I know that no one could possibly re-create it no matter how hard they tried but it's still worth pointing out to me. But it does give me appreciation for his work and makes me realise how good he was at writing. It makes me want to re-read all my old favourites.


2 stars ✨️
Wouldn't reccomend (but most children from the ages of 5 to 12 would probably really enjoy it), wouldn't re-read



-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈
Skimmed through it. Review to come.

[Richard Denton]

This is a fun story but my biggest issue is how it was written like a David Walliams book with him narrating what is happening rather than be a traditional story along with very big text every few pages. That is fine for their own stories but when this is meant to feel like Roald Dahl's work, it doesn't feel right. The story was good but it is no The Twits.

Ps I know the twits uses narration in the same sort of way but it feels like it was used much too often here.

[Justin]

Not sure if it’s the nostalgia, but I had to give this five stars. It felt like reading The Twits by Roald Dahl for the first time again. So fun and I can’t wait to share it with my students.

[Kate]

As a child, I loved Roald Dahl. I think even then I appreciated humour with a bit of darkness thrown in. So when I saw that there were going to be new stories released, taking inspiration from some of his characters, I felt both curiosity and trepidation to how it may go. The Twits Next Door is the first of these to be published. Sadly, for me, it didn't quite live up to my hopes for the book.
It has left me wondering if part of why it hasn't quite worked is because of the 'author.' James is a celebrity turned author, and this can be hit and miss when it comes to success. Although the book itself has been produced beautifully - the illustrations are great - I feel that the story falls a little flat. Then again, maybe it's just because it's not Dahl...

[Zena]

Overall an entertaining story. I kept looking for those magical moment that Dahl would give. Wasn’t out of this world, wasn’t terrible.

[Lindsey]

This was great; very funny. Made me laugh out loud more than once with its over-the-top silliness. The youngest was watching it on Netflix, so we decided to check it out and even though it is very different than the movie, as often happens, I think the book was better. 🙂

[Michelle Van Bakel]

super leuk en grappig geschreven, ook leuk dat er echt naar de lezer geschreven wordt op sommige stukjes.
Zo lijkt het alsof je echt in het verhaal wordt bedtrokken.
Ook echt een goed voorlees boek!

[Nia Griffiths]

Read this book with my year 4 class, both me and them absolutely loved it! An excellent prequel to the Twits.

[Daisy Hendrikx]

Super leuk, dit vervolg geïnspireerd op De Griezels. En de schrijfstijl klopt ook best goed. Met net zoveel beschrijvende bijvoeglijke naamwoorden als Roald Dahl zelf gebruikte. Deze woorden worden ook veel uitgelicht, door een ander lettertype en formaat.
Lijkt me een super humoristisch boek om uit voor te lezen.
Maar ook voor kinderen die niet van saaie leesboeken houden is dit een aanrader.

[Wesley Mead]

Convincingly recaptures the style of Dahl, albeit with slightly softened and modernised edges.

[Sarah Threlkeld]

Delightful and hilarious sequel to one of my favorite books from childhood. The whole family listened on audio and cackled continuously.

[Dan Patmore]

A perfectly daft kids story.

But not a patch on anything by Roald Dahl.

[iamjacsmusings]

The Twits with a twist just doesn't have the same witts.

[Caleb]

I don't even know where to start. Suffice it to say that I don't think Roald Dahl would like this book at all. Here are some things that I don't think he'd like:

1. This book treats children like they're idiots. I can't keep track of how many times the book repeated something it had already told us in the previous chapter. Plus, this book relied way too much on potty humor. Ugh. Yes, the Twits are supposed to be disgusting, however we do not need detailed, graphic descriptions (and pictures) of their bathroom, their underwear drawer and Mr. Twit's naked butt (which of course had an illustration to accompany it).

2. This book didn't read at all like a Roald Dahl book. Yet again, they continually talk down to the readers, but it also just wasn't written in the right style. Sidenote: About halfway through the book the writing style changed for no apparent reason. My only thought is that, because it was written by two authors, one of them wrote the first half and the other finished it. I still don't know what the deal with that was.

3. The 'protagonists' of the book are self-obsessed, self-diluted, cult-like, fake cardboard cut-outs. They are the Lovely family (Sidenote: When they were being referred to as individuals they were always referred to as Mr. Lovely, Mrs. Lovely etc. But when they were referred to as the family, they were called the Lovelies. That's not how grammar works! They should've been referred to as the Lovelys). The Lovely family are over-the-top 'nice' and thinks that everybody is 'lovely' underneath. They eventually realize that this is not true and decide to get revenge on the Twits by killing them with kindness (not literally, but that would've been way more fun).

4. Roald Dahl books are known for dealing with dark subject matter and tend to teach a strong moral lesson without shoving it down your throat. The only part of that sentence that this book did was shove it down your throat. I'm not entirely sure what this book was shoving down my throat, but it definitely was shoving something down my throat.

5. I actually felt bad for the Twits by the end of the book. And honestly, I think they were justified in hating the Lovelys. I too would despise my newly moved in neighbors if they acted like dumb Stepford Wives and tried to force their 'nice' and 'lovely' ideologies on me all day, every day. They are the loudest most obnoxious people I've never met. They're basically communists. They forcibly paint someone's house bright yellow about halfway through the book (this is because the current color of the house isn't 'lovely' enough to their standards). They also give people purple and yellow (great color combination by the way) shorts that when worn forces the person wearing them to dance uncontrollably. They get people to drink a rip-off of fizzy lifting drink. Except this drink doesn't make you fly it makes you burp out compliments to people (see point #1 again).

6. This book is woke trash. You know, how a couple of years ago the people who publish all of Dahl's books started censoring his works? You know, taking anything out of the book that might be deemed 'offensive' to some? Well, this book had the advantage of starting off unoffensive. Congratulations! Your book isn't funny at all! Because you can't be funny if you're not willing to be offensive.

The only good thing about this book is that it leaves you wanting to go read the original Twits book. So instead of wasting your time reading this filth (see point #6 again) just go read original book, The Twits by Roald Dahl. Or go read any of Dahl's other classic books that will live on people's hearts and personal libraries for centuries (even if they can't buy brand-new versions of the books anymore (see point #6 again, again).

Somehow this is only the 3rd worst book I've read this year. That's actually impressive that it's not #2 or #1.

[Katy Kelly]

It's not Dahl but it's a great comedic book in its own right.

Taking inspiration rather than much more from Dahl's famous (and one of my favourite) children's stories, Greg James brings us a contemporary fiction set in Mr and Mrs Twit's possible world, before the events we know and love.

While the original was taut and quite a slim volume, Greg James expands the story so it's not the Twits playing tricks on each other constantly (though they do this wonderfully - my son and I are now constantly playing their game of insulting each other with alphabetical puns and slights, thanks for that) but opens out to the whole community and most especially the new neighbours.

The Lovelies. I've never said the word Lovely so much out loud. This started out quite predictably an 'us vs them' between the Twits and the scamps of new children next door, but I felt the book really took off when Mr and Mrs Lovely decided their new neighbours MUST have loveliness hidden underneath... but may at some point have to admit defeat.

The loveliness of the Lovelies was hilarious, and how the family determine to teach the Twits a lesson is pure comic heaven for kids. We giggled away (and I'm 44, about as big a kid as you can be).

James pays tribute to Dahl in the opening, with his descriptions of beards and faces and a few marriage pranks, and at the end when he leads on nicely to the events in the original. But he has free reign in the middle to do his own thing with the characters.

Pranks, pratfalls, sneaks, subterfuge and a lot of silliness - it was a great bedtime read over a couple of weeks.

For ages 6-11.

[Lora]

It’s such a dream when great characters and stories get a sequel. So fun!

“…mean thoughts turn you inward. Nice people are always looking around, seeing how they can make other people's days better. They face outward and are curious about the world around them and the people who live in it. But mean people are entirely turned inward, jealously guarding their wicked thoughts like a dragon guards its treasure.”

“…must have been children themselves once— there's no way round that, as far as we know—but, as with many twits before and since, they had stopped being children as soon as possible and immediately forgotten what it was like.”

"”WHO WANTS TO BE LOVELY?" said
Mrs. Twit.
"Well... everybody!" said Mrs. Lovely. "Everybody is lovely underneath! It says so on our living-room wall."”

“But the problem with being a kid, as you may have noticed, is that grown-ups don't listen to you
when they really should.”

[McKenzie Richardson]

For more bookish opinions, visit my blog: Craft-Cycle

A brand-new adventure featuring the Twits. The infamously grouchy couple is about to face their biggest challenge yet: new neighbors. To add insult to injury, these neighbors are nice and pleasant and disgustingly lovely. Follow along as they try to get rid of these pesky newcomers in this entertaining prequel to the classic tale.

Well-written in an engaging style that compliments the original. Filled with plenty of gross humor, outrageous absurdity, disgusting tricks, and shocking surprises.

Fantastic black-and-white illustrations that wonderfully depict the action and humor of the story.

A fun modernized adventure inspired by Dahl's classic characters. While nothing can quite live up to the magic of Roald Dahl, this was a highly entertaining story with great humor and a few nice lessons along the way.

[Jonathan]

I don't know if it's fair to Roald Dahl to give this book 5-Stars and the original Twits only 3, but I kind of want to. I'll start off by saying it's for sure better than the original, but at the same time it wouldn't be without the OG. How does one go about making a sequel to a novel written by one of the greatest children's book authors, idk, but this is pretty dang close to how it should be done. I truly loved everything about this. It had deep levels of Dahl's humor hidden throughout, a strong message for the reader and a longing for more. I'm sure everyone in the publishing house was on the edge of their seats wondering how this would play out and all I'll say is they nailed it!!!!!!

[Ozsaur]

When the Lovelies move next door to the Twits, chaos ensues. The Twits are a horrible couple who hate everything. The Lovelies are the loveliest family in the world. The Twits decide to drive the Lovelies away by playing nasty pranks on them.

This was a silly, goofy book. The humor leans toward the gross, so kids that think burping is funny will love this. Actually, all kinds of kids will love it. It's fun enough for an adult if they want to read it out loud to children. Doing the voices would be a lot of fun. And the way the book is written (words that are big and bold in places) and illustrated make it delightful.

[M.]

“Ah, well. No rest for the twittish. Better get on with it, I suppose.”

The original is a children’s classic, and this one gives the twits a common enemy: neighbors. No rest for the twittish indeed.
I liked how this expanded the setting by having the twits interact with other people instead of just the two of them and how referenced the to original. At the same time, I felt like it used fonts and letter size to emphasize words too chaotically. The chaos of the twits is in the content, in the story, not in the typeface or the illustrations that try to show what is being described.

[Sheila]

I had to give this book a good review so the authors didn't hunt me down, as they threatened to in the story. Besides, it was written as Roald Dahl might have written it and, as a fan of the late Roald Dahl, I enjoyed it. Mr. Dahl's original story of The Twits was also good, along with The Witches, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, Willy Wonka, etc. Greg James and Chris Smith also wrote The Kid Normal series, which looks to be interesting and entertaining.

[Brenda Marie]

A cute new tale of the Twits.
While irritating each other with tricks, new neighbors move in next door. With children. GASP.
This cannot be tolerated - the Twits work together to force them out.
But the Lovelies believe everyone is lovely - even the Twits. Their children are determined to have their parents understand some people are just twits.

[Reader Mukherjee]

Got it as a Xmas present. What to do if your neighbors are absolutely horrible? Hope to have the Lovelies coming to town. They will bring love, joy and happiness and conquer the rotten twits with awesome methods. Loved it, even I am an adult. The rhymes included makes it a fun read and the illustrations made me giggle!

[Hanif Ur-Rehman]

To be fair at the end of the book, it was a prequel to the original The Twits book.

It is a prequel because he wants to bake bird pie and he did that in The Twits.

Reviewed by Hakeem (age 8 years old).

[Maggie Meyers]

Can I just say, I loved this silly lil book? My 9-year-old and I have been reading it together as a bedtime story for weeks now and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We're waiting to see if they drop another one since it ended on such a cliffhanger! 😉

[Jenna Brine]

Noah loved that this was a prequel to the original and thought the twins were so funny! Especially when they caked the Twits in the face. He loved the part where the pigeons pooed on their heads and it went in their eyes- so horrible!

Be lovely to everyone- unless they're a Twit!

[Izzy]

don’t be a twit and read the twits next door!

Such a cute,fun and funny story.i really enjoyed it.definitely recommend 10/10.i loved that this book had elements of roald dahl while also being unique