My toddler has terrible taste in books [lighthearted]

[UnlimitedChipsAndSalsa]

Come and rant about the books you hate to read to your toddler.

My worst offender at the moment is Peppa Goes to Playgroup. Terrible illustrations, meh storyline, hardly anything in the pictures to point at, and a huge percentage of the text is names. DD loves that book and has never even seen Peppa Pig (we got the book in a bundle of used books that I bought). We had to hide it for a while for our mental health, but I took pity on DD and put it back in the rotation.

Anyone else have an unreasonable hatred toward an innocent book?

@BadgertheBodger

I quite like the Tiger Who Came to Tea, purely because it gives me joy to imagine that Sophie’s mummy has had some kind of Valium/afternoon gin based episode where she couldn’t be arsed making Daddy’s tea so she’s invented some elaborate cover story about a tiger. And Sophie’s Daddy is obviously so used to this he just sighs inwardly and takes them out to the cafe

Haha! DH is convinced she's having multiple affairs

@TaVeryMuchLove is that the one with 2 penguins, one is a bit of a wimp? I think I put that in the charity shop bag as I hated it!

The Disney dad nature of tiger who cames to tea gets me. Like he just swans in and takes them to a cafe, as if mum hadn't thought of this

Axel Scheffler’s On The Farm has some really tortured sentences trying to fit into the rhyme scheme. Wish he’d just stuck to illustrating

@BadgertheBodger that's what I always think. Reminds me a bit of Fridays on / after Mat leave when my friend would come over on Friday afternoons for wine and DH would come home to a house that had been trashed by 2 toddlers! I used to hate it and the way the dad saved the day with his great idea of a cafe but now I just smile to myself about the mum getting hammered!

Peter Rabbit. It's difficult to read and it's about a fox wanting to eat the rabbits. My 3 year old is terrified!

Yes all those classics about violence and animals eating each other like three little pigs and big bad wolf etc were a bit challenging for a little mind to fully take on board without being scared. So much so that we used to turn these stories around on it’s head and so three big pigs looking after one little wolf friend etc. I think there are even similar read along alternative YouTube versions. Same for little red riding hood as these can be a bit much for a two, three or four year old to fully take on board as it’s basically cartoony violence from a less woke and politically engaged yesteryear. Toddler pictures books are usually positive happy stories these days apart from some like the superhero concept as there is even an evil pea and super potato!

I have an unhealthy loathing for the Alfie books. The illustrations are appalling and the ham fisted efforts at equal representation of the sexes make my blood boil.

They’re boring as shit too.

Bloody Charlie and Lola ! and my dd had the in the night garden book when she was small it was sooo boring as was the tv programme !

My 20 month old always chooses books with pictures of food in. Then when he gets to said food he jumps down from the sofa and runs to the fridge. Anyone would think that I have been starving him.

Anything by Giles Andreae. I made the mistake of getting a set of ten of his books last year and they're awful, not funny, clever or educational. I've managed to get rid of all of them apart from Mad About Minibeasts.

@clickychicky

Dear Zoo,

"I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet"

There's a word missing there surely.

And don't be so ungrateful for the random pets they send you or at least specify your requirements and what was a dog doing living at the zoo?

@clickychicky Yes! There seems to be a lack of manners/appreciation. And what kind of irresponsible zoo sends exotic animals to random people without checking that proper preparations have been made? What about the animals' welfare?

@Seahawk80 yes it is. Just an awful story and boring as sin!

I LOVE Julia Donaldson (apart from one dodgy rhyme involving the word 'roar') all except The Princess and the Wizard. It's long, it's boring and the rhyming is terrible. Definitely an off day that day.

Second The Tickle Book. I got rid of our copy and my lovely mother bought us another one.

@UnlimitedChipsAndSalsa
I feel especially sorry for the camel who is transported in a crate only just big enough only to be sent back for being too grumpy!

It's been over 30 years since I was forced to read it to my children, but Sam Pig and his fucking Fiddle used to send me demented.

I have seriously considered buying it for the Grandchildren as a form of long-awaited revenge.

The weird weird weird product placement book that comes with the Gro Clock.

@Horehound

The one that springs to mind is Goodnight Moon.

It's not the story but i don't understand why the little toy house is coloured the same as the background on one of the pages. It's psychedelic!

I would have agreed in the past, but my severely language delayed 3 year old DD suddenly started joining in with the words and rhymes in the book. So I have a soft spot for it.

@user16395699

My mum saved a book that I loved so much at that age that I asked her to read it to me so many times she apparently thought she was going to lose her mind.

She was pretty outraged when she shared it with me as an adult and I had absolutely no glimmer of recognition whatsoever for the book she had endured again and again because I once seemed to love it so much.

I do remember lots of other lovely books she read to me, but not that one...

Your poor mum!

@Billandben444

Make the most of them enjoying any book. My grandson, now a teen, became addicted to a magazine called Tractor Weekly or somesuch. At about 2yrs old he would seek it out in the corner shop and spend large parts of the day cooing over autocar-type adverts for tractors of all shapes and sizes. You try reading that at bedtime! He's never liked books or stories despite all our efforts but neither has he become a farmer - the fixation waned a couple of years later.

My dad loves magazines about tractors and he's 70!

Never mind giraarf: we had one book - Bedtime Bear - which had as a mini-rhyming couplet

an owl
in a towel

I thought this was a dreadful idea. Husband couldn't understand what the problem was

(we do agree on scone though, and gang up against our children)

The worst had to be Three Hungry Spiders and One Fat Fly, bought from a Scholastic Book Fair largely because of the three sticky-plastic spiders attached to the corner of it...

The illustrations were quite sweet, but the verse was third-rate drivel which really didn't scan; and then towards the end the author obviously thought "aaaagh, need a rhyme - oh, fuck it, nobody will notice", leading to this gem, in a book otherwise consisting entirely of rhyming couplets:

The noise was so loud the spiders jumped
And fell into the pasta sauce

We have one called Dumper Truck Dash. So annoying. It randomly refers to the truck as if it is alive. It's not, it's being driven by a rat, but the book celebrates dump truck's heroics. ITS INANIMATE!!

And another called 999 emergency. I hate the wording. Every page starts "call 999. Emergency". I hate the sound of my own voice reading it.

I find I get sick of most books. Hence spending a fortune on new ones to relieve the tedium.

@clickychicky Maybe you could write a prequel where the camel starts off cheerful as can be.

@merryhouse

Never mind giraarf: we had one book - Bedtime Bear - which had as a mini-rhyming couplet

an owl
in a towel

I thought this was a dreadful idea. Husband couldn't understand what the problem was

(we do agree on scone though, and gang up against our children)

The worst had to be Three Hungry Spiders and One Fat Fly, bought from a Scholastic Book Fair largely because of the three sticky-plastic spiders attached to the corner of it...

The illustrations were quite sweet, but the verse was third-rate drivel which really didn't scan; and then towards the end the author obviously thought "aaaagh, need a rhyme - oh, fuck it, nobody will notice", leading to this gem, in a book otherwise consisting entirely of rhyming couplets:

The noise was so loud the spiders jumped
And fell into the pasta sauce

How do owl and towel not rhyme?!

I can see how scarf/laugh/giraffe might not, but I can't think what accent owl and towel do not rhyme.

@Regularchoice

He's the Roald Dahl of their generation. I really think this is just something his publishers keep saying, in the (vain) hope that it will become true. Whenever I was forced to read DWs stories, I always got the feeling that he had met very few children in real life, and that he must have intensely disliked those few. My own DD had a love for Princess Evie and her magical ponies back in the day. Absolute muck 😖

Oh I meant it in the absolutely most negative sense. I'm not a Dahl fan!