Kids books that made you cringe

<p>I actually liked Hatchet for older kids.</p>

<p>The Velveteen Rabbit was creepy.
The Peter Rabbit books were pretty awful, too.</p>

<p>I liked the Velveteen Rabbit. I don’t think it was supposed to be a happy ending, really. Even when I was really little I could tell that it was bittersweet. The boy grew up and no longer needed his stuffed bunny; the real bunny watched the boy playing and having fun without him at the end, right? Very honest and somewhat sad. The story is probably similar to Toy Story, especially the sequels.</p>

<p>I never got Alice in Wonderland. Some Roald Dahl I loved, some I really disliked. Just never appreciated James and the Giant peach. Or Matilda. </p>

<p>But there are some fabulous books my kids and I loved: The Pain and the Great One by Judy Blume. Alexander and the Horrible No Good Very Bad Day. A Fly Went By. And the one that all my little nieces and nephews loved was The Monster at the End of the Book. They just loved to be scared at the monster until it turned out to be Grover. I’ve owned more than a couple of copies of that one.</p>

<p>My kids loved Hatchet too.</p>

<p>keshira–it’s not just that the books are cleaned up. The “disneyfication” leaves no trace of the original author’s style. Borrring.</p>

<p>Reminds me of the “Great Illustrated Classics” you see at the discount store. Awful, awful “easy to read” retellings of classics. Criminal.</p>

<p>I remember my grandma reading to me from a giant tome of Grimms fairy tales. It was such a treat. Sometimes I didn’t really understand everything- the vocabulary, the ideas. But that was half the mystery. The questions, the discussion. Brings back such memories. As an early reader child, I remember picking up the same book and trying to read it on my own. I think that was the defining experience that led to me yearning to read- those afternoons listening to my grandma reading from those mysterious, old tales.</p>

<p>The Velveteen Rabbit- funny thing is- raising boys- they weren’t afraid of violence, playing war, battles, life and death themes, etc. But the singular most disturbing thing to their little psyches- that their most intimate lovable stuffed animal would be snatched from them and burned up in a fire. Now THAT was something that really disturbed them.</p>

<p>Have to agree with “The Giving Tree” - depresses me!</p>

<p>Have to disagree with BBears - my son TREASURES his collection! While I remember a time when I dreaded reading BBear books cause they seemed SO long, what was more important was the pleasure the series brought to my kids. </p>

<p>I was never a Dr. Suess fan - guess I liked a more substantial plot! Funny thing is, that now I’m director of several literacy programs and a week from tomorrow we’re celebrating “Read Across America” day with a Dr. Seuss Day…we do it annually…go figure…</p>

<p>I loved all of these–I made my son a Lowly Worm cake for his third birthday. My absolute favorites were the Laura Engels Wilder books. I grew up on “The Prairie” and lived through a “Long Winter” and loved, loved, loved these books. What creeped out my son was, “Where the Red Fern Grows”. He said it was traumatic.</p>

<p>“Where the Red Fern Grows” made me cry for three days straight when we had to read it for sixth (fifth? I dunno) grade.</p>

<p>Plot summary: happy boy has fun romping around with happy dogs. Dogs die slow and painful deaths. Delightful children’s story concludes with puppy-deaths.</p>

<p>

I saw a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit in Target about a month ago, and having forgotten the plot, I picked it up and read it. And started crying, at age twenty-four, just like I had when I read the book when I was little. That book was traumatic for me – I was afraid to throw out my old toys for fear of offending them.</p>

<p>I was similarly traumatized by a book (whose title I cannot recall) about a boy who scorns the gift of a teddy bear, only to have a terrible nightmare in which he is gifted to a giant teddy bear and similarly cast aside.</p>

<p>I didn’t *hate *this book, but it was terrible to read out loud. Called The Truck Book, it had pictures of a different kind of truck or two on each page, and a little bit of unreadable text. It was sort of like reading a technical manual out loud. Unfortunately, it was WashDadJr’s favorite book at age 3 or 4, and I had to read it Every. Day. For. Months.</p>

<p>Another real favorite: did anyone else love the PJ Funnybunny books? In every book, PJ wants to change something about his life, learns something about himself, and learns to deal with it. The best PJ book was the one where he decides not to be a bunny any more and tries being a bear, a moose, and <something else=“”>. When PJ was trying to be a moose, he went around saying, “MOOK!” which has entered our family lexicon. It turns out that the sound of a kiss is not a smooch, it’s a mook.</something></p>

<p>Sorry, I posted this on the other early books thread, but I have to post it here where it fits:</p>

<p>'the Very Hungry Caterpillar." bothers me. A children’s author should research his material before he writes a book that sells millions of copies with incorrect information. If a caterpillar spins a cocoon, he would pop out as a beautiful moth. </p>

<p>Butterflies only pop out of a chrysalis. VHC a great story, but this has bugged me for years, and I have always had to change the word cocoon to chrysalis when reading it out loud.</p>

<p>My daughter and I noticed a few years ago that any recent book with the “Newberry Award” sticker on it was probably going to depress you into a fetal pose. Dead parents, child abuse, dead pets, loss and despair seems to make the Newberry people declare an instant classic. Ick. This tendency carries over into ya books as well. I’m not surprised so many young people would rather not read when their reward for reading a book is depression. An awful lot of the books assigned is Middle/High School are like this (I’m looking at you, Lois Lowery!) I think it probably started with Where the Red Fern Grows. Between that and Old Yeller, I wouldn’t read a book with animals in it for 20 yrs and I was really careful which ones I picked up for my daughter. Black Stallion was okay…the horse lived.</p>

<p>i cried every time i read the giving tree as a child. i was embarrassed to read it in front of others, and carefully get out of reading it to the kids that i babysit now, for fear of bawling once again.</p>

<p>and i liked the bearenstein bears. but why did the dad have to be so dumb? the stories were amusing though.</p>

<p>i cried when i first read the giving tree. and the second time. and the third. then i stopped reading it</p>

<p>i also cried when i read midnight fox–i think that’s a newberry honor book.</p>

<p>"I usually read chapters from The Federalist Papers or Ulysses to the boys when they were little. Aw, just kidding. "</p>

<p>I actually DID read my kids whatever I was interested in reading when they were babies–novels, the voter pamphlet, whatever. Put anything in a sing-songy voice and they loved it. </p>

<p>Realized that I really didn’t like “Rainbow Fish” after reading it a handful of times. And can’t remember a celebrity-authored picture book that I could stomach even once.</p>

<p>Did anyone ever read The Happy Hippopotamuses?</p>

<p>That was our FAVORITE.</p>

<p>[Amazon.com:</a> When I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old’s Memoir of Her Youth: Jamie Lee Curtis,Laura Cornell: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/When-Was-Little-Four-Year-Olds-Memoir/dp/0060210788]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/When-Was-Little-Four-Year-Olds-Memoir/dp/0060210788)</p>

<p>we actually have a quite a few books by “celebrities”
that one by Jamie Lee curtis</p>

<p>[Amazon.com:</a> The King Who Rained (Stories to Go!): Fred Gwynne: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/King-Who-Rained-Stories-Go/dp/1416918582/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203920129&sr=1-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/King-Who-Rained-Stories-Go/dp/1416918582/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203920129&sr=1-1) I the Munsters)</p>

<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Terry-Jones-Fairy-Tales-Puffin/dp/0140322620]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Terry-Jones-Fairy-Tales-Puffin/dp/0140322620]Amazon.com:</a> Terry Jones’ Fairy Tales (Puffin Books): Terry Jones,Michael Foreman: Books<a href=“monty%20Python”>/url</a></p>

<p>Ian Fleming ( james bond) also write a popular childrens book that did and pretty well & Truman Capote wrote A Christmas Memory that is a classic</p>

<p>I wouldn’t write ( pun) them off, just because they are well known for something else.</p>

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<p>Novelisto, I agree. Growing up, my best neighborhood friend pre-read all the animal books, and warned me if the animal died so I’d skip those. We made weekly raids on the local library. She was sort of my literary wine-taster.</p>

<p>Captain Underpants stirred quite a controversy in our SD, but so many little boys were hooked on reading because of that series!</p>

<p>the books that really made me cringe were the books that I had to read in first grade( when I already knew how to read)- compared to Dick & Jane, Captain Underpants was Shakespeare!</p>