Product Description

This is the story of Robert Caligari - a thoroughly evil 13-year-old who gets his kicks from kicking pigs. After a humiliating episode with a bacon butty, Robert realizes just how much he loathes the human race - and his revenge is truly terrible.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #220530 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 96 pages

From the Publisher
More about this book...
This is an outrageous subversive horror/fantasy from Tom Baker - ex-monk, ex-sailor, and the ultimate Dr Who.

The hero is Robert Caligari - an evil 13-yr old - whose hatred for the human race spills into a truly terrible revenge. It's a short, gory, and tremendously funny story, illustrated throughout with b/w line drawings from David Roberts.

Comedian ARDAL O' HANLON said of it: "I thought it was grotesque, depraved, and above all very funny. It held throughout the troubling tone of, appropriately enough, a bacon slicing machine. I particularly appreciated the idea of the ex-xylophone player who now delivers meals-on-wheels playing his imaginary instrument in response to a mishap he's just witnessed. Lovely. And I'm still hanuted by the rather beautiful image of a horse leaping from a flyover on to a motorway."

ESQUIRE MAGAZINE: "Tom Baker's book will find favour with juveniles and grown-up children alike. It touches that great British nerve of revelling in the grotesque. [Tom Baker's] new book is ace."

Customer Reviews

A monsterous boy...
This is a delightfully curious book, a short and heavily illustrated (every other page is art) tale seemingly aimed at children but of such a dark content that it may well be more appreciated by adults. As Baker himself describes it: "This really is a very sad and terrible story. It is a tale of undiluted horror". The story concerns an evil young boy called Robert Caligari, and how his hatred of humanity leads to a truly ghastly comeuppance, and is told in Baker's unique and, let's face it, utterly loopy style. A delightfully mad jet black comedy, a book to both amuse children and give them nightmares. Nice one, Tom.

Eccentric, dark and very silly
This is an amazing tale of a terrible boy who is not nice. There are surreal moments and really quite silly bits. The story is all over the place, and slightly flimsy, which makes this more of a cult book but it will have its ardent fans. Wonderful illustrations by David Roberts though.

Roald Dahl was never this funny, or this nasty
The Boy Who Kicked Pigs is a morality tale in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm and Roald Dahl. It is wickedly funny and deliciously nasty. Set out as a children's story (although at the price of this edition that would be a brave bit of parenting) although almost certainly not suitable for the younger child, it delights in disturbing events and true unpleasantness.
Tom Baker knows from his time as Dr Who what it takes to make people squirm with discomfort and all of that experience is distilled here in a thrilling tale.
Go on, buy it, I dare you.