Nasty Little Beasts

Nasty Little Beasts is a 2007 children's horror short-story collection by British author Jamie Rix. It was the first book published by Orion in the Grizzly Tales book series, which is continuation/reboot of the book series Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids, and is illustrated by Steven Pattison, who illustrated the rest of the books in this new series.

Nasty Little Beasts
AuthorJamie Rix
Audio read byRupert Degas
IllustratorSteven Pattison
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
SeriesGrizzly Tales
Release number
  • 1 (of reboot)
  • 5 (in franchise)
Genrechildren's horror
PublisherOrion Publishing Group
Publication date
5 April 2007
Pages125
ISBN9781842555491
OCLC77257698
Preceded byMore Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids 
Followed byGruesome Grown Ups 

Development
Further information: Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids (TV series) and Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids § Book series

Before Nasty Little Beasts was published, Rix had published four books with Andre Deutsch, Scholastic, Puffin Books, and Hodder, which were used as inspiration to adapt into a cartoon series for children which aired on ITV's CITV timeslot between 2000 and 2006. After the fourth series, there were no more stories to adapt so the rest of the episodes contained newer stories with no source material. Nasty Little Beasts contains novelised adaptations of four series five and two series six episodes, with a framing device of a storyteller. Possibly to imitate the structure of the popular cartoon, the storyteller would speak directly to the audience (shown through a font different to the stories) and used vague anecdotes and proverbs to show the reader how they would relate to the stories he was about to tell. This new character was The Night Night Porter,[1] a creepy owner of a hotel (named The Hot Hell Darkness)[1] that would open his check-in book where the stories have been placed. After telling the stories, he would punish the misbehaving kids to spend eternity in one of his hotel rooms.[2]

Synopsis

The Clothes Pigs

Trueman Shuffle (nicknamed Truffle by his family) is a lazy boy who refuses to clean up after himself. His parents are frequently exhausted because they are constantly chasing after him, but when they complain, Truffle either ignores them or argues. They tell him that "clothes pigs" will get him if he insists on living "in a pigsty", but Truffle points out that pigs would never be seen in the streets of their city. One day, his mother falls down the stairs after tripping over clothing he had dropped earlier, breaking her leg. Truffle ignores her painful cries for help and orders her to make his dinner, and leaves the house to go the fish and chip shop when she "refuses". When he returns home, his father scolds him for his selfish, which is at a pitch to carry across the city through the vibrations of garden washing lines. It reaches the countryside, where four starving piglets are scavenging for food. They hear a high-pitched "truffle" and decide to leave the farm and look for the truffles.

Reception
See also: Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids § Reception

To add to the previous praise from the previous book series, Grizzly Tales: Cautionary Tales for Lovers of Squeam! received critical and audience acclaim. Jennifer Taylor for The Bookseller wrote that the reboot books are perfect for children who enjoyed the Horrid Henry books,[3] and The Daily Express wrote that "No house of children should be without one of these."[3]

References
  1. "Grizzly Tales — Jamie Rix". jamierix.com.
  2. "Books and Other thoughts - Grizzly Tales: Nasty Little Beasts". www.booksandotherthoughts.com/. 27 March 2011. Archived from the original on 19 December 2019.
  3. "Grizzly Tales 1: Nasty Little Beasts: Cautionary Tales for Lovers of Squeam!".
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