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?

Hahaha! I am intrigued now and want to read that!

I agree with The Tiger that came to tea and the Charlie and fucking Lola books.

Also those shite (but blissfully short) Meg and Mog books.

I hate the Mog the cat book. I have twins and sometimes they BOTH choose that book and I have to read the fucker twice.

Goodnight Moon! For some reason the old lady eating her "bowl of mush" makes me feel sick.

Also, I like Dr Seuss "The Foot Book", but the last line scans completely differently to the rest of the book, which annoys me every time I read it!

The Snail and the Whale. I like most of Julia Donaldson's books (as does my DC) but find that one a bit dreary and long-winded and it doesn't trip off the tongue.

@Indigopearl

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.

Haha, my 17- month old twins favorite book is "Joe Wicks Wean in 15". They rush to take it off the bookshelf and point at all the pics of the food and then frantically point at the fridge!

We’re currently reading “Peppa big and the best sleepover, EVER!” … 8 times a night before bed.

I want to go back to bouncing babies and chuffa chuffa choo choo

Bear Hunt pisses me off, it goes on and on and on with repetition, but thankfully I can still skip some pages.

Thomas the Tank Engine is definitely the most boring thing on our shelves, pointless stories IMO.

Fucking Julia Donaldson. All of them (except Paper Dolls). For crimes against scanning, rhythm, rhyme.

This! The illustrations are awful too.

There is also a special place in hell for the Little Red Train books.

@Tiredforfive45

I agree with The Tiger that came to tea and the Charlie and fucking Lola books.

Also those shite (but blissfully short) Meg and Mog books.

I hate the Mog the cat book. I have twins and sometimes they BOTH choose that book and I have to read the fucker twice.

Yes! Mog the Forgetful Cat...

I really hate saying the line that goes 'bother, bother, bother that cat!'. Makes me cringe.

I can also recite Gerald The Giraffe without even needing the book; we’ve read it so many time that all the words are etched into my brain. Annoyingly as I loved the book to begin with.

Squirrel Nutkin is the worst. He's such a little shit that I sorely wish Old Mr Brown had managed to skin him. It's one of DS's current favourites and I'm starting to find myself pondering his riddles as I go about my day.

We also have a version of the gingerbread man where he gets gobbled up by fox and 3 little pigs where they shut the wolf in a pot of boiling water. I would have expected a bit of sugar coating but DS seems unfazed.

@CorpusCallosum

Harry and the fucking dinosaurs go wild!

It's so long, it's so boring, it's so loved 😫

One of the pages is almost ripped off and I've told DD that if the page comes out we won't be able to read it anymore. It has been hanging on by a thread for weeks. Fecking thing.

Harry and the Bastard Bucketful of Dinosaurs for me! It goes on for aaaaages and it’s shit. I skip the pages with Sam being horrible to Harry, it doesn’t make sense reading it out loud without the kids seeing the pictures anyway.

Chuffa chuffa choo choo is another shit one. The kids discovered it today in the bin so that’s been added back to the evening routine now 🙄

@BathshebaKnickerStickers I want to read the Bosch hot water bottle book, too. It sounds bizarre!

When ds1 was a toddler, his favourite book in the whole world was one for trainspotters - about Class 50 Locomotives. I lost count of how many discussions I had to have about diesel locomotives, and how much interest I had to feign in this book.

When it fell apart, he was so sad, I had to sellotape it back together.

But he now works for a rail infrastructure company, so I suppose it was good, early training!

It reminds me of one time when I was childminding as a teen. The family was heavily into an MLM scheme, and their house was filled with everything possible from that brand. It was time to read the kids a bedtime story, and they said they didn't have a preference. So I said I'd close my eyes and grab one from the shelf. You guessed it...it was a book about the MLM scheme and how the kids loved helping their parents unpack and organise the shipments. I was a few pages in before I realised I was part of the propaganda machine!

Maisy's Bathtime is weirdly, shockingly inappropriate - she's having a bath, her friend comes round, she's like 'I'm busy having a bath' and her friend just goes and gets in her bath uninvited - wtf?! DS inexplicably loves it and knows every word of it off by heart but I sometimes wonder if I should hide it in case it's essentially encouraging him to be a sex pest.

His other great love is a completely plotless book about toilet training - just a sort of gentle educational introduction to the concept. It's not a bad book as such but he's been completely toilet trained for the best part of a year now so I really think it's time to get past this book but he disagrees...

@MuchTooTired
Chuffa Chuffa Choo Choo here comes the train.. when do I jump

Love this thread!

I too loved mr men and Thomas books and my brother's postman pat as a kid and yet hated reading them!

Out of all the Beatrix Potter books my two both loved "fierce bad rabbit"which was mercifully short as hers go but shockingly violent!!

Same with older kids' books, loved Dahl as a kid, HATED them reading aloud...

This may not be a popular choice but now I'm on my third read of the Harry Potter series I find them annoying to read aloud, although I can see they're good for kids to read to themselves. I'm finding myself skipping lots of the prose lately and adapting sentences to be more compact! And why does everyone have to have such long names!?

@Winterfellismyhome

Thats not my tractor/bus/unicorn

Yep that's not my unicorn. Silver lining is its quite short tho 🤣

Glad other people dislike Mog. I always felt I could never say it out loud but I fucking hated those books. Boring and weird but not weird in a good way. Mog Does A Shit. Mog Nearly Smothers A Baby. Mog Stares At A Wall. Like, what the actual fucking fuck?

Aw! The days when they'd find the most boring book every. Spitfire manual in ds' case. Why anyone would want the intricacies of a Spitfire engine to be read to them is beyond me, but he did. Regularly. When he hit 5yo I instigated a rule that I chose the bedtime books and things looked up. He also enjoyed them. I knew we were onto a winner when he was hiding under the bedsheets going "keep reading, keep reading..."

Mog is terrible. I bought it in some dreamy reminiscent daze then read it and realised how shit it is.

Little miss hug needs a real lesson in consent, it makes me really uncomfortable and a a bit sad for poor Mr Grumpy.

Also I love the Smeds and the Smoos but I CANNOT read it without tripping over the words!