The book feels more grown-up than the picture book version, as the story is now divided into 10 chapters. Worst of all is the Terrible Blood-Suckling Tooth-Pluckling Stone-Chuckling Spittler, who chases his prey while clouds of hot red smoke pour out of his nose, and then swallows them up in one gulp. 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. My daughter bought this with her birthday money, it was delivered quickly thanks to Prime and she was finished it within a few hours. This resulted in new illustrations for James, the two Charlie stories, The Magic Finger, Fantastic Mr Fox and Danny the Champion of the World.

We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. Some people may think that Blake's style better fits the Dahl books of the early 1980s, but here Blake shows remarkable restraint in depicting Billy's adventures with the Minpins. Have two children who are Roald Dahl fans but neither of them were particularly keen on this particular book compared to his other books. They are rightly ranked among the greatest classics of children’s fiction, stories that celebrate kindness, bravery and hope.

In contrast, Blake is more sprightly and more close-up and his illustrations accompany the story at every step. I thought it might be scary for him but he enjoyed it and was motivated by the world of the minpins. 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 uses his scent to lure the Gruncher into a lake.

It is accepted by you that Daunt Books has no control over additional charges in relation to customs clearance. We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. Endlessly inventive and laugh-out- loud funny, Dahl’s stories reinvent the world for every new generation. I think I might be keen to see Dahl's estate put out a colour edition of this Blake edition of the Minpins.My middle child didn't tell me till he was a teenager how he would run into his bedroom scared and jump into bed and pull the covers up over his head after I read this book to him. Illustrated by Quentin Blake for the first time in 2017, Billy and the Minpins is a new interpretation of Roald Dahl’s very last story (originally published as ‘The Minpins’ in 1991) and marks nearly forty years of their magical collaboration.

He escapes what he is sure must be the Spittler by climbing up a tree as high and as fast as he can.He was a fighter pilot for the RAF during World War Two, and it was while writing about his experiences during this time that he started his career as an author. The text in this edition of Billy and the Minpins was updated in 2022 for young independent readers.

Occasionally the vignettes don't place themselves within a context, but we can still have an idea of the scene even when viewing these drawings. Little Billy is forbidden by his mother to do a lot of things, including entering the Forest of Sin behind his house.The leader of the Minpins, Don Mini, tells Little Billy that the monster waiting under the tree is not the Spittler (which the Minpins have never heard of), but the Red-Hot Smoke-Belching Gruncher, who grunches up everything in the forest. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. It may be different from Benson's naturalistic picture book illustrations, but it has its own rewards to devotees of Dahl and Blake. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin.