Children’s books you don’t like?

[MagnaDoodle]

Anyone got a book or two that makes them inwardly sigh and weep when DC asks for them?

I had to read my most disliked book today. Burglar Bill. Dirge.

Pirate Dinosaur was one that I really couldn't stand. I suspect the author had just said to themselves "Oh! Boys need to read more. Boys like pirates and boys like dinosaurs. So put them together and I'll have a winning formula without actually having to think up any sensible plot."

@BikeRunSki try reading The Highway rat (and other Julia Donaldson) with a Scottish accent. It scans better. I can switch accents, and thought it weird that on reading The Gruffalo for the first time, I instinctively changed accent. Since then it's worked for most of her stories.

Looked it up later, and it seems she was living in Glasgow at the time. As a linguist she probably picked up accents really easily.

Both are julia Donaldson’s i think

the Tickle Book - it doesn’t even rhyme or scan properly. It’s so ridiculous.

And goat goes to playgroup - I feel so sorry for poor goat, they’re mocking everything he does. He even wets himself at one point ffs - how is that an appropriate story for a toddler?!

This thread makes me really sad 😔

Not last night, but the night before, by Colin McNaughton.

I borrowed it from the library and couldn't wait for it to leave my house, I was so creeped out by this one. Various storybook, nursery rhyme and other characters (including Mr Punch) knock at the door, literally knocking the boy over as they run into the house, leaving him cowering.

Spoiler alert
They turn out to be guests at his birthday party.

I think it's more the illustrations, rather than the text that got to me.

I can't remember what it was called but something about an elephant that went 'rumpeta rumpeta rumpeta' all the bloody time. The DD's loved it. I did not.

I loved reading Donaldson and Scheffler books to my dc and they used to love them too - they are total screen addicts so cant be smug though. I did have to stop reading going on a bear hunt for one of the 3 who found it too scary.

I used to despair if my dc wanted me to read comics with speech bubbles, in particular Ben 10, I also hated reading the repetitive books like rainbow fairies. My dc despair when I try to read them Heidi, little women etc. There are some classics they have liked though and read themselves and asked me to then read it to them - Black Beauty was one which I had never read as a child, so was very surprised by that.

Milly Molly Mandy used to irritate the heck out of me as a kid. Such a boring little girl with a boringly rigid taste in clothes. And who on earth has both sides of the entire family, GPs, uncles, aunts and all living under the same roof? (Food for another literary AIBU I think). Looking back I outgrew those kinds of books very early.

And What Katy Did, which I loved as a kid, I look back on now and find its attitudes to women and disability outdated at best and toxic at worst. I wouldn't let any child read it now without a great deal of discussion and reflection.

The ugly duckling - he's ugly because he looks different?? And the solution is apparently not to ditch his judgemental friends/family and discover a new life where it doesn't matter what he looks like but to turn into something different and 'beautiful'. Grrr. And yes I know it could be read as a metaphor or allegory or whatever for growing as a person but still....

"I hid some of the Mr Men/Little miss books because I didn't approve of the message"

This, a thousand time this.

Mr Tickle hides in the bushes and gropes people.

The villagers smash Mr Nosey in the face with a hammer just because he looks at them.

The Mr Men are probably responsible for most crime waves in the modern era.

TheLastNigel - was it “The Elephant and the Bad Baby”?

I remember hearing the librarian in the local library reading it for story time. Sounded like fun but I can imagine it would lose its charm after 100 readings.

Not a book exactly, but Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. Poor Rudolph, no one likes him because he is different then Santa asks him to pull his sleigh and suddenly he's popular? How shallow are those other reindeer. And what is the message to children?

I absolutely despise "Peepo!"

It was clearly written a very long time ago by someone with no concept of a small child's attention span.

We’re going on a bear hunt

I too disliked the shameless preaching by CS Lewis.

"As every sensible person knows, you must never shut yourself in a wardrobe." Mentioned several times in the same book.

"And now we come to one of the nastiest parts of the story. Edmund decided to let Lucy down."

Perhaps Mr Fussy is responsible for some of the regular moans on MN.
"My guests won't take their shoes off!"
"I don't want workmen using my toilet, they might make a mess!"
Fussy old fusspot!

I remember my dad sneering a book that was given to me as a present: Winnie the Pooh's Happy and Healthy book, with lessons such as "be sure to say thank you"; "brush your teeth, comb your hair and wear a nice smile".

Mr Men. Worst books ever and so inexplicably popular.

@TheLastNigel @sodabreadjam I just found this thread and came on to say the elephant and the bad baby. So monotonous and pointless. Ds2 loves it though. I think it sort of rocks him to sleep with it's rhythm.

Handas surprise... done it to death as a teacher....

I generally love Dr Seuss - his rhythm is almost always spot-on and I thoroughly approve of the inventive and anarchic premise behind a lot of the books* (plus the Cat in the Hat is the most brilliant allegory of Freudian theory) - but his ABC is really poor. Someone gave it to us when dses were small, now dd has discovered it and adopted it as one of her favourites, God help me.

*Green Eggs and Ham is a bit difficult. Ds2 (11) pronounced the other day (apropos of nothing) that it was about not giving up if you really want/believe something. But it could also be read as being about someone being browbeaten and badgered into submission. Not good.

Anything with dwarves. For some reason I dislike those stories.

I love most Julia Donaldson’s but I can’t stand The Highway Rat! I find it really hard to read and it doesn’t flow very well!

Someone must have posted this already, but the Highway Rat is a pastiche of the Highwayman (look it up - as famously recited by Anne of Green Gables in the classic film). It makes sense then.

My DC have a book called Oh Jack. It's bloody rubbish. I can see how the author thought it might be a good story, but it's not very well executed. I inwardly groan whenever they want to read it.

Which one gets walled up alive in a tunnel because he’s slightly vain about his paintwork?
That traumatised me when I watched it on dvd - how can it be a children's programme?!!!!! I had to get rid of the dvd set after that.
And I don't enjoy the David Walliams books - can't see the appeal at all.