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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to really dislike it when picture books are just wrong?

445 replies

mousyfledermaus · 18/10/2011 21:44

for example "a squash and a squeeze" the house from the outside does not match (windows/doors) the inside.
not to mention funny proportions.

OP posts:
ThePsychicSatsuma · 19/10/2011 17:09

nb
don't forget the gruffalo christmas ornament on the tree in stick man

FlightofFancy · 19/10/2011 17:12

YY on so many of these.

I've got particular issues about 'That's not my monkey', so normally read it with different emphasis - 'That's not my Monkey, because it's my gorilla' etc.

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks about myxomatosis with sleeping bunnies...

Thanks so much to the poster who mentioned the 'Puppies' book - oddly we have it in Italian (emergency purchase on holiday day trip where DS posted only book down air-con vent on ferry - don't ask), and while I don't speak Italian I'd managed to sort of translate most of it, but couldn't work out the first page - sniffing makes sense!!

ThePsychicSatsuma · 19/10/2011 17:17

and Richard Scarry - amazing books., littered with errors
eg. letter 'g' s hi-lighted, at least 6 missed off page....
But they are so wonderful I forgive them.

LieInsAreRarerThanTigers · 19/10/2011 17:20

Richard Scarry is another one who has animals with pets!

TheSmallBloodiedFingerPrint · 19/10/2011 17:22

thank you TheJoyfulPuddlejumper I am sitting here saying it out loud to myself but it still sounds weird.

TeamEdward · 19/10/2011 17:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

notasupermummy · 19/10/2011 17:53

In my version of the book, my surprise is that there is no mirror!!!:(

MsPrufrock · 19/10/2011 17:57

rhubarbgarden- we have the Puppies book. The puppy who doesn't like to sniff is the one with the bee on his nose; he's scared he'll get stung!

The rest of this thread is brilliant. I detest the 'That's not my...' series, not because they are dull (god, they are, though) but instead because they are inaccurate. 'That's definitely not my kitten. Not because it's nose is too smooth (WTF? Do I spend all day stroking kittens' noses, grading them like sandpaper from smooth to very abrasive?!) but because it clearly looks NOTHING like my kitten. It is a totally different colour, just for a start.'

BoffinMum · 19/10/2011 18:01

Angelina Ballerina books are just so wrong on many levels. But the fact the ribbons are tied wrong on her shoes in every single picture makes me see red (i.e. they are not tucked in as they should be). I'm a bit of a pedant like that.

aliceliddell · 19/10/2011 18:02

Haven't read this all properly, but has anyone pointed out that the Hungry Caterpillar should have one food source, not just any old bit of veg lying around? Gah.

ZonkedOut · 19/10/2011 18:12

I identify with quite a few of these pedantic posts!

My personal bugbear is in Guess How Much I Love You In The Spring. Little Nutbrown Hare asks what an egg turns into, Big Nutbrown Hare says, "A bird". "A big big bird?" "Well, a grown up bird". No no no, an egg turns into a baby bird, not a grown up bird.

Arkady · 19/10/2011 18:14

Don't even consider reading any of the Little Red Train books. Beautiful drawn. Utterly adored by kids who like trains. Great for talking together about the pictures, finding new details, pondering at length together to increase verbal skills, etc etc.
But DH and I have now spent half an hour straight listing wrongness. (The geography in Green Light for example.) You would all grind your teeth down to nothing.

DesertOrchid · 19/10/2011 18:15

My 'Look There's a Baby' had a surprise mirror ending: there was no mirror...

gnushoes · 19/10/2011 18:31

A debi gliori book that rhymed bees and geese. Haven't got over it 10 years on. Should get out more.

boohoobabywho · 19/10/2011 18:46

i have a problem with some of the books DD brings home from school. One in reception was about goldilocks and the three bears and started... when the bears found out about what golidlocks had done to thier house they decided to follow her and trash her house.

Another said there was no tooth fairy- her blumming teeth hadnt even fallen out yet and she had already been told in a blumming book with blumming pitctures that they dont exist and its really your mum or dad.

then there was the fat elephant who tried to diet, but kept cheating and failing, and decided she was happy being fat!

OOOOHHHH dont even get me started on the Blummin Jackie Wilson books. who btw is the biggest hippocrite on Gods sweet earth. She said that children behave appalingly and just because she writes about appaling children doesnt mean that she agrees with it! WTF... give them some good role models then you ninny..

And Breathe.....Blush

Hulababy · 19/10/2011 18:50

Winnie the Witch anyone?

The picture of inside Winnie's house at the start of the book is different to the one at the back - the bathroom and bedroom are the wrong way round.

Korky Paul said, at a reading we went to, it was a mistake, an accident.

BertieBotts · 19/10/2011 19:20

We had "Look there's a baby" (with surprise dodgy fairground mirror) and something which had inexplicable repitition in (Can you find your nose, nose, nose?) in our bookstart pack. The Can you find your... book says on the back that babies will love the surprise mirror ending, but no mirror in that one at all. Just wondered if those with the Look there's a baby mirror missing had one in there? Maybe they were going to put one in both and then ran out of money Grin

Apols if this has already been said but Mog & the Baby was written in 1980 hence lack of seatbelts and the fish as catfood. And possibly the laid back approach to babysitting, though, er, perhaps not going that far!

MinnieBloodBar · 19/10/2011 19:22

I'm confused - our version of Stick Man has a foot coming down the chimney, not a hand. Have they changed it?

ThePsychicSatsuma · 19/10/2011 19:36

hee hee Tiger Came to Tea; when she's all sober again in the morning, mummy scuttles off to the supermarket, all efficient. Have to restock after that dang tiger...!

Original poster
mousyfledermaus · 19/10/2011 19:52

next when santa sits on the floor in front of the fireplace he has the claws out.

OP posts:
vincentvangogh · 19/10/2011 20:00

I have a big problem with Winnie the Witch. If everything's black, how come we can see anything at all? There's far too much detail in the illustrations for the stuff to be exactly the same shade of black and just different textures. You'd need fantastic lighting to show so much detail.

mumofthreekids · 19/10/2011 20:18

Arkady, don't you think that the geography in Green Light for the Little Red Train is sooooo weong it almost becomes right??

mumofthreekids · 19/10/2011 20:19

or maybe so wrong it becomes weong...

Fishandjam · 19/10/2011 20:33

A little cheapy lift-the-flap book DS has always annoys me. It's called "What's in the Jungle?" and contains the following schoolboy errors:

  1. Putting a toucan next to the giraffe. (And do not get me started on picture books which have penguins and polar bears in close juxtaposition.)
  2. On the subject of the giraffe - it is generally a savannah/plains animal, not jungle.
  3. Ditto zebra for point no 2
  4. One of the animals, rather randomly, is an armadillo. Some species do indeed live in the jungle but the one depicted is the type that lives in the desert areas of southern USA.

Otherwise, it's fine. I could always use the Monty Python excuse - "must have escaped from a zoo!"

openerofjars · 19/10/2011 20:43

I love the wine bottles littering the track in the Little Red Train books. Grin

We have a very soppy book about baby animals going to sleep in (generic) Africa which contains the line, "Zebras lay panting, tired out from their play", when the rest of the text is in the present tense. Grr.