The recommended reading age is from 8 to 12.
This collection of short stories features a girl's problems with her stinky parents, a child-hating shopkeeper, a disgusting witch who makes people bald and a boy with a beautiful beard - as well as other wicked, brave and cracking characters.
From My Stinky Parents:
Their eyes were glued to the TV. Both were fat and very pale and the sofa sagged really low under their weight. Dad had a big bald head with the back of his neck made up of three rolls of fat as thick as three rolled up newspapers. He wore a mangy string vest that I'd never seen off him. Each day it looked and smelled like it had soaked overnight in a bucketful of six-month-old sweat. Mum's black hair, shiny with grease, hung lifeless off her skull like an unwashed mop head. She always wore the same dress every day. Years ago it had been white. Now it looked yellow-brown.
From The Meanie In The Sweetshop:
Her voice got harsher, "I notice the way those sly boyish hands sneak over the sweets ready to steal what isn't nailed down when steady eyes like mine aren't watching. Best place for those hands is under a merciless cane. That'd help you learn to keep your grubby, thieving hands out of mischief. Pity they don't beat boys nowadays."
From Paddy's Beard:
Paddy Flynn was only ten, the same age as the others, but unlike them he had a long beard that stretched right down to his belly button. With the sunlight flooding the room, the beard glittered and winked like gold dust. It was thick and tough like a lion's mane, yet to touch it was like touching the finest silk. But Mr Scalppen's face only darkened. "There's always one," he hissed. "Always one. Name, boy?"
Paddy gulped, "Paddy Flynn, sir."
"Playing a joke on me, Mr. Paddy Flynn?"
"What do you mean, sir?"
"Wearing a trick beard to tease me?"
"No, sir. No trick beard."
The teacher dashed forward, sniffling, grabbed the beard and wrenched upward. Paddy howled like a wolf as his feet shot off the ground and he dangled helplessly in the air.