Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids is the debut book by British author Jamie Rix and was the first book in the children's cautionary horror book series Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids. It was published on 17 May 1990 by André Deutsch Limited and contains 15 short cautionary tales. These stories featured a monster maths teacher, animal nannies, a barber that specialised in making rude children behave themselves, a giant that cannot stop growing, a magical hat, a magic book, magic scissors, and a sweet shop full of mannequins.
It won the 1990 Nestle Smarties Book Prize for Fiction, Age 9–11.
Synopsis
The New Nanny The Frightfully-Busy family lives in South London and knew nothing about each other: the parents were workaholics that had no time for their children, Tristram and Candy, who spent every day bullying their nanny, Mrs. Mac, and tell their parents a different story the moment they came home. One day, they claim she had beaten them with their father's expensive golf clubs which gets Mrs. Mac fired, but that would be the moment where troubles began. Mrs. Frightfully-Busy is devastated they have to get rid of an old family friend as she looks through a telephone directory and discovers the Animal Magic agency. 30 minutes after booking, a talking python is on the doorstep wearing an apron and carrying a briefcase, but Mr. and Mrs. Frightfully-Busy have no time for any briefing and left for work immediately after the python's entire long body is in the hallway. The python tells Candy and Tristram to treat her as a human nanny, ironically consenting to the children's behaviour and removing any fear they had of snakes. They burn her tail in boiling water, tie her up and dunk her head in the toilet, make her slither over thumbtacks, and leave her in the garden for birds to peck at her. When their parents arrive home at 6 pm, the python slithers out of the house as fast as she can, but when the parents confront the children, Tristram claims the python tried to strangle him.
The next morning, Mrs Frightfully-Busy telephones a complaint to Animal Magic, who promises to send a better nanny. 15 minutes later, the parents rush out of the house and a giant spider crawls in. Tristram takes her to the bathroom and he and his sister splash and pour water over the spider, and then demand she makes a climbing frame in the garden out of her web. She weaves as the children order her to make it bigger until it stretches across two gardens and as high as the chimney. As she slept, the children tie her up in it and poke her with a stick until their parents came home. After their father escorts her out in a wheelbarrow, the children sob that she tied them to the ceiling by their ankles. Mrs Frightfully-Busy telephones another complaint the next morning and goes to work immediately after, leaving enough time for Tristram to wait at the front door with a bat. Seconds later, he smacks an alligator on her head as Candy laughs. When their parents came home, they found a sleeping alligator and no children. The alligator admits she ate them, lays two eggs and leaves. Tristram and Candy hatch out the eggs and immediately confess their abusive behavior as they hug their mother. The door knocks and Mr. Frightfully-Busy finds Mrs. Mac on the doorstep, who was hoping his children had found a new nanny. Mr. Frightfully-Busy admits it had been hard, rehires her and helps with her three suitcases. One was made of snakeskin, one was small and fuzzy, and the other was made of alligator-skin.
The One-Tailed, Two-Footed, Three-Bellied, Four-Headed, Five-Fingered, Six-Chinned, Seven-Winged, Eight-Eyed, Nine-Nosed, Ten-Toothed Monster In the Indian village of Jaisalmer, there was once a monster that used to terrorise at sundown. It lived in the nearby caves and every brave knight that attempted to slay it for (one thousand rupees) was never seen again. Tulsidor was a farmer's son who was the tallest boy in his class, and Mathematics was his worst subject. There would be a Maths exam soon but Tulsidor was unlikely to pass, no matter how many private tutors his parents hire. One night, being distracted by 2+1 and 1+2 made him forget that sunset was over, and the monster charged towards the village looking for food. Tulsidor faints and wakes up in a dark cave, spotting the monster sitting opposite reading, and is caught when he attempts an escape. The monster offers to teach him how to count and uses his many body parts to help Tulsidor with addition. Tulsidor enjoys his free Maths lesson and learns how 2+1 and 1+2 both equal 3, and explains that he hears about the monster kidnapping and eating people and is worried the same would happen to him. The monster is surprised to hear these rumours and replies that he wants friends but all the animals will run away because of his appearance, and he is very clumsy because of his giant feet which constantly destroys houses in the village.
Three days later, Tulsidor returned home unharmed. When he got the highest test grade in the Mathematics exam, his teacher demands to meet the person who taught him. The next day, Tulsidor escorts the monster to his school. The village panics but Tulsidor assures the monster is the new Mathematics teacher with no intention of eating humans. Jaisalmer becomes the birthplace of history's best mathematicians and still is the best place in the world to learn maths 400 years later.
The Spaghetti Man Despite being closed and abandoned, once a year, a pasta factory in Venice whirs and chugs through the night. No one had ever been seen leaving and/or visiting and its original owner's whereabouts are unknown, but whenever it comes to life, the front gates open to allow a black car to drive out and back in. Then the gates close and the factory remains unused for another year.
In the United Kingdom lives Timothy King, a boy who throws violent tantrums over every meal his mother gives him. His mother is terrible at discipline and fails to make her son listen to her, whereas her husband is an emotionally distant workaholic and uses army slang that often confuses Timothy and causes him to misbehave more. One morning, Timothy picks up his plate and throws it at the kitchen sink, splattering the Sunday roast against the window. As his mother cries in helpless despair, the front door makes an unlocking sound. Nervously, Mr. King remarks to the intruder that he was in the army only to take his wife with him for support anyway as he leaves the kitchen to investigate the hallway. Now alone, Timothy smells flour, baking and then spaghetti. He suddenly feels a suffocating pressure on his mouth, like a hand trying to shut him up, except the "fingers" brushing his cheek feel like thin sticks. When his parents return to the kitchen, Timothy can breathe again and the smells disappear.
For a while after the incident, to his mother's surprise, Timothy eats everything given to him. She later theorises that The Spaghetti Man had visited them that day, explaining he kidnaps children who refuse to eat their dinners and turns them into Pasta. She assumes Timothy has been spared and given a chance of redemption. Timothy scoffs at the tall tale, despite having been eating his food these past days. This soon changes the next breakfast when Timothy reverts to his old behaviour when a plate of toast is placed in front of him. He rants about his hatred of the food and his family and declares he will not eat it as he leaves the kitchen. Pushed to her limit, Mrs. King follows and drags him back to the table as she tells him she will not let him leave until he finishes.
The next day, Timothy is still at the table with the day-old toast in front of him. He tries to get rid of it: he throws it in the bin, he sneaks out of the house and shoves it in a postman's bag, and tries to feed it to the goldfish, but the toast always returns to his plate. The next day, Mr. King goes to work and Mrs. King leaves to go shopping. Now that Timothy is home alone, he sets out his revenge: he empties the fridge into a bin bag and stuffs it behind his parents' bed; he breaks every lightbulb in the house with rocks from the garden and kicks the cat; he breaks a door with a screwdriver; and goes to the bathroom to flood it. As he finishes doing so, the latch on the front door unlocks. Timothy hears it and, believing it to be his mother, stands triumphant as the bathwater rises, excited to see her reaction. But when the bath overflows and the bathroom door flies open, no one and nothing is there, save for the smell of flour and spaghetti. When Timothy's mother comes home and finds the house in shambles, she turns off the taps, calling out for her son in vain.
Timothy wakes up in a room full of children with labels of food on their clothes. A girl with red, curly hair explains they are in Italy and will be turned into food by the Spaghetti Man. She shows off her curly twirls label and points out Timothy's lasagna one. Timothy gags at the thought of becoming lasagna and attempts to start a revolt, jumping onto a table and yelling at the children that they have been lied to and should leave. But in the doorway behind him stands an evil-looking, smug chef smacking flour off of his hands. That night, Venetian citizens sleep as the abandoned factory returns to operation until sunrise with the black car leaving through the open gates. Back home in the UK, Mr. and Mrs. King's lives improve without Timothy's mealtime tantrums; Mrs King notices Timothy is gone but finds herself happier for it, never telling her husband. When he goes back to work one morning, she prepares some lasagna for that night's dinner. It's implied that the lasagna is, in fact, their son.
The Princess's Clothes Felicity is constantly pampered by her father, who nicknames her Princess, to the point of seemingly believing she was one. She has so many clothes and shoes, she has been featured in Vogue and Harpers and Queen articles. One day, her mother invites a wrinkly woman with a crocodile-skin briefcase into the house. This woman is Miss Shears, a representative of a fashion catalogue, and Felicity's mother wants to show her daughter different clothes. Felicity throws a tantrum because her father buys her new clothes every week but she is ignored as Miss Shears shows off brochures advertising outfits that were not pink and lacy. Felicity continues her tantrum and runs out of the room, leaving her mother to choose her the frumpiest outfits she has ever seen. She refuses to talk to her mother for many days and hides in the garden shed when the outfits are delivered. She was horrified to discover that her old clothes had been moved out of her wardrobe and replaced with clothes of different shades of blue. Her mother begs her to try something on but Felicity refuses until her mother angrily gives up. Because she can not find her old clothes, she improvised with bath towels, a fishing hat, Wellington boots and a fur coat, and ran for the school bus, leaving her parents to bicker about who raised her better.