The bad child's book of beasts

by Hilaire Belloc

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Genres: Poetry, Childrens, Humor, Fiction, Animals, Classics, Picture Books

56 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1896

About the author

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc, French-born British writer, is considered a master of light English prose and also widely known for his droll verse, especially The Bad Child's Book of Beasts in 1896.

The sharp wit of Belloc, an historian, poet, and orator, extended across a large literary output and strong political and religious convictions. Throughout his career, he prolifically wrote across a range of genres and produced histories, essays, travelogues, poetry, and satirical works.

Cautionary Tales for Children collects humorous yet dark morals, and the historical works of Hilaire Belloc often reflected his staunch Catholicism and critique of Protestant interpretations. He led advocates of an economic theory that promoted and championed distribution of small-scale property ownership as a middle ground between capitalism and socialism, alongside Gilbert Keith Chesterton, his close friend.

In politics, Hilaire Belloc served as a member of Parliament for the Liberal party, but the establishment disillusioned him. His polemical style and strong opinions made him a controversial figure, who particularly viewed modernism, secularism, and financial capitalism as threats to traditional Christian society in his critiques.

Reviews

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully comic verse describing a variety of dangerous animals. I had to read several aloud because I was laughing so hard.

[Binibining `E (of The Ugly Writers) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frog is a beast? oh yes! Lions and Tigers too. lol.

[Rogue Male · Rating 3 out of 5]

5/10

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that can be read in less than twenty uproarious minutes. Here's a brief example, entitled "The Big Baboon":

The Big Baboon is found upon
The plains of Cariboo.

He goes about
with nothing on

(A shocking thing to do).
But if he
dressed respectably

And let his whiskers grow,
How like this Big Baboon would be

To Mister So-and-So.

[verbava · Rating 3 out of 5]

у цьогорічному різдвяному епізоді «доктора хто» дванадцятий доктор (мій улюблений. я за ним сумуватиму) на коментарі першого доктора час від часу робить великі очі та просить не говорити _отакого_, бо це шовіністичне _отаке_ обурюватиме приблизно майже всіх, із ким він, будь-який за номером доктор, спілкуватиметься надалі. а тільки ж п'ятдесят років минуло.
від беллокової книжки минуло вдвічі більше, і вона досі місцями дуже весела, але йому теж регулярно хочеться сказати: альо, мужик, ну що ти несеш. цікаво, що в «застережних історіях для дітей» такого менше – може, за двадцять років між ними автор трохи підріс. ну, або тема була не така благодатна для ксенофобських жартів.

[Mommalibrarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stars are for rhymes and illustrations. Has not aged well - animals are to shoot.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

'The Bad Child's Book of Beasts' is a charming little book of short poems about animals, with illustrations by Lord Blackwood (BTB).

It is Belloc's style which makes this book unique. It does remind one of Roald Dahl in fact, although 'The Bad Child's Book of Beasts' was written way back in 1896, exactly twenty years before Dahl was born. It is difficult to recommend it to parents nowadays, as its potential of edification (which I believe to be essential in children's literature) for children is marred. It is not the fact that it is politically incorrect as one reviewer pointed out, what can you expect in a book written in the nineteenth century? It is the case that I believe it has become redundant. It can still can be enjoyed, without a doubt, and thanks to its being easily available for free online, it remains a nice taste of Belloc as a writer for any discerning reader, young and adult.

Charming, even though it has become redundant as a piece of children's literature.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reminded me of Roald Dahl, as some other reviewers have said. Really goofy little verses for children. And watch out for all the shooting of endangered animals! Not very PC for today's standards, lol!

[Nevada Libert · Rating 4 out of 5]

belloc is a great poet.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

🖊 Fun and worthy of my time. Not only does Belloc clevery rhyme, he produces morals to each poem. This is so much better than Dr. Suess Theodore Geisel, a.k.a. "Dr. Seuss."

📕Published — 1896.
🎨Illustrated only in the Project Gutenberg version.

જ⁀🍋 Read on Project Gutenberg.
જ⁀🍇 Kindle. (not illustrated)
༻ ༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻ ༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻༺ ༅ ✬ ༅ ༻ ༺

[SBC · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's not really anything about bad children in this book (it's not another version of Belloc's Cautionary Tales). There are just numerous poems about different kinds of beasts, including the 'camelopard' (which was what the giraffe was called in England in earlier times). The poems are reasonably amusing, but definitely products of their time - there's a heavy emphasis on hunting African beasts, which feels so wrong from a modern perspective.

[Courtney Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilaire Belloc, born in France of a French father and an English mother was as much an outsider as a Balliol man could be, in Edwardian England. He married a Californian, and in the happy early days of his marriage achieved his first literary success with The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts, which a century later is still acceptable to my ten year-old....Read the full review at https://catholicreads.com/2019/03/16/...

[SANDYE · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a favorite

I read this book to complete a reading challenge I joined. It's a children's poetry book with a lot of references to killing animals. It's not written from a hunting point of view because that wouldn't have bothered me had that been the case.

[Mattie]

Me: [Finding there to be racism in this book from 1896] I don't know what I expected

[Timothy Morrison]

Spends a lot of time griping about children

[Marissa Genta Pineda · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems are whack and I love them.

[Hanta]

Bad kids' book? Or bad beasts' book?

[Ricka Obry]

36:#31 have they not seen how many generations we have wiped out before them who will never return to them?

[Daniel Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

I commend to you, the yak.

[Frederick]

I was given the Dover paperback of this when I was about nine. I didn't really have an emotion about the book but I did love the line drawings. Dover, at that time, printed mostly facsimiles of first editions. I would place the original printing anywhere between 1899 and 1930. Certainly Belloc lived long enough to enrage a lot of literary snobs when he declared P. G. Wodehouse to be the greatest living writer in the English language, but Wodehouse wrote (and lived) for so long that I can imagine Belloc saying what he said anywhere from about 1926 to 1939 or so (by which time Belloc would surely have been dead.)
Anyway, the Dover edition had those great illustrations. I can't say I related to the supposedly funny poetry.
Hazarding a guess, I'd say the Lemony Snicket books get certain inspiration from THE BAD CHILD'S BOOK OF BEASTS.
For fans of Dover when Dover printed each paperback with the claim that "this is a permanent book" (because the books had string sewn into the binding, the way hardcovers used to have string sewn into the binding), I recommend getting on Abebooks.com and looking for a Dover edition. Reprint though it is, its probably become sought after. Dover called the string-in-the-binding "sewn signatures."
Dover Books is still based in Garden City, New York, just a half hour from where I live. Apparently there is a fantastic bookstore within Dover's headquarters. Dover printed a lot of Trollope facsimiles. Now all they print are books of uncopyrighted clip art and glued-together classics which are not facsimiles. I'm sure they print a facsimile or two still, but Dover as I knew it is no more.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seminal children's book where the rhymes and illustrations are both equally inspired and idiotic.

I seemed to remember seeing a copy of this when I was at school. I don't know how to copy and paste pictures into Goodreads so can only provide you with a sample of the poetry. This little ditty is called 'The Yak':

The Tartar who dwells on the plains of Thibet
(A desolate region of snow)
Has for centuries made it a nursery pet,
And surely the Tartar should know!

Belloc himself looked like a bit of a beast from photographs you can find of him online, so much so that I thought he deserved his own poem in the same vein:

The Belloc was a weighty beast
With massive head and rear,
He obviously enjoyed a feast
And ripped off Edward Lear.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gift from Grandpa to Ruairi in that great dry British style, including "More Beasts for Worse Children" and "A Moral Alphabet."

Such as the entry on D for Dinosaur telling the tale of the happy-go-lucky dino, whose downfall was that he liked to sleep in trees, with the resultant tumble the reason that "His fossil, therefore, comes to light / All broken up: and serve him right. Moral: If you were born to walk the ground, / Remain there; do not fool around." (p 110)

Or "E stands for Egg. Moral: The Moral of this verse / Is applicable to the Young. Be terse." (p 111)

[Torzilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains a series of poems that are well written that describe the animals in our world. Children will find these tales not only catchy, but fun to listen to and repeat due to all the rhyming.

I found the tales to be entertaining and catchy – most made me grin. The illustrations accompanying this text are even more beautiful than the ones found in East O’ the Sun and West O’ the Moon. Not only are they realistic, but the attention to detail is astounding.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This never fails to make me smile. Before Ogden Nash, there was the divine Mr. Belloc.
The Dodo used to walk about, and take the sun and air,
The sun still warms his native land yet the dodo is not there.
The voice that used to squawk and squeak is now forever dumb,
But you may see his bones and beak all in the Mus-e-um.

[Nicola Gruen]

We were reading this book tonight at bedtime when my 8 year old daughter exclaimed, "This is the same as the song I'm singing with the San Francisco Girls Chorus!" She ran straight away to her chorus folder and brought back "Anamalia - Candy Lion, Frog, Turtle Tango" by Earl J. Reisdorff. The frog is identical to the last chapter in this book, originally written in 1896! Quite reinforcing!

[Sri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucu tapi kadang kejam :(. Apa buku seperti ini bisa dikonsumsi anak-anak dengan aman ya? Adakah anak-anak yang baik hati tapi berselera humor gelap seperti ini? Buku anak-anak oleh Roald Dahl juga kadang kejam-kejam.

[Bridget Gould · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a gift from my grandmother on my 6th birthday. Every year she took me to the bookstore and let me pick out my present. I'm not sure if this book is responsible for my love of monsters, or if that's why I chose it in the first place, but it holds a very special place in my heart.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really funny poetry for children with a proto-Dahl flavor.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute illustrations and wonderfully dry and rhyming text. Not very PC anymore though...the author talks a lot about hunting some of the "beasts."

[Alex Strohschein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Belloc's little book of beasts. Not as good as his "Cautionary Tales" but there are some humourous bits. Some of the entries are too short for my liking.