[.ca] Skin And Other Stories (ISBN 0670891843)

From Amazon.com:
"'This is going to be a bit of a shock to you, I'm afraid,' he said." With those words, Patrick Maloney seals his fate. He has no idea that his mousy wife, Mary, isn't about to take his abandonment of their marriage lightly. He never sees the frozen leg of lamb that hits him squarely in the noggin. And he'll never know how tidily Mary cleans up the evidence--by having the local police dine on the murder weapon! The late Roald Dahl, best known for children's novels such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, also wrote many wonderfully wicked short stories, like the aforementioned "Lamb to the Slaughter," collected in Skin, a succinct, darkly humorous anthology for teen readers. Besides the murderous Mary Maloney, a host of other odd characters will leave teens gasping with surprise or chuckling with guilty laughter. In "The Surgeon," Dr. Robert Sandy is given a priceless diamond in exchange for saving a life, promptly loses it, then recovers it again from the strangest of places. "An African Story" chronicles a lonely mountain hermit's bid for revenge that involves a deadly black mamba snake, and "The Sound Machine" describes how a wacky inventor nearly drives himself mad when he creates a contraption that allows him to pick up noises outside the human range of hearing. There is something for the naughty side of everyone in this Twilight Zone-ish compilation, a recommended read for fans of Dahl's other teen short-story collection, The Umbrella Man. (Ages 12 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

Wonka's dark side is just as great!:
I always imagined Roald Dahl fashioned Willy Wonka on himself -- but then I read this book and saw he is equally gifted in weaving dark horrifying tales as well as the whimsical fantastic children's books for which he is famous. SKIN runs the gamut with strange tales about ordinary people --- the man who had his friend tattoo a picture of his wife on his back to find out, years later, it is worth a fortune; the 60-something man who runs into his childhood tormentor on the commuter rail, etc etc. All situations that COULD happen to you or someone you know .. thus making them all the more real and scary.

Why Do You All Think This is a Kids' Book?:
Dahl wrote for children as well as for grown-ups. Stop freaking out because this book isn't Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. It's excellent.

TOO GOOD:
Very good. Beyond words to describe..so i won't heheh =) I liked it very much.

Skin!:
I really liked the stories in this book, they are very clever, but a bit dark. All my friends want to read it. -From a 13-year-old girl

NOT WHAT I EXPECTED:
I purchased this book in the belief that these stories would acually be macabre; instead they are only darkly humorous if even that. But this is Dahl, so my expectations were lowered from the beggining-although "Beware of Dog" was good. A particualary weak hearted reviewer gave this book one star because it was "horrifying" -heh heh heh. If one can't take this, I'd advise not to buy horror movies or you'll suffer a heart failure. The truth is cruel.