to really dislike it when picture books are just wrong?

[mousyfledermaus]

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

Charlie and Lola using "I", instead of "me" or vice versa. Drives me bonkers.

I always think Peepo is based in London at the start of the War so children haven't yet been evacuated...

Plus actually, children didn't have to be evacuated and some did stay with their parents, so maybe that?

My family we'ren't evacuated, they told great stories about lessons in the corridors, going down to the shelter and putting the door back on in the morning. I really thought of them in those photos (the baby is my Uncle).

Oh and Peepo isn't that rather American? I did find that odd, I pronounce it peepO.

My mum and dad both used to dawdle to school (different schools!) in case the sirens went off on the way - as long as they were outside the school gates, they could leg it back to the shelter at home. And my mum and her brother used to chase the paths of the doodlebugs

Puts helicopter parenting into perspective a bit :o

mummytime - the baby in Peepo? That's so sweet! Yes, I say peepO (ie short peep, long oh), but if playing with my daughter I might say peek-a-boo (is that also American?)

Chase the paths of doodlebugs - my word! Just remarkable how different those childhoods would have been to ours and our children's. So brave.

I can't believe that with all the dinosaur pedantry on here, nobody's mentioned the fact that cavemen and dinosaurs clearly should not be able to steal each other's underpants!

Like somebody else (can't remember who, sorry), I hate "The Selfish Crocodile" for completely messing up the ecosystem once the crocodile gets "nice". I also can't stand books that don't scan, or which have really tortured rhymes. A lot of Dr Seuss bugs me because it doesn't rhyme in RP.

yes to dr seuss not rhyming. always have to dig out my fake american accent for that. or let the ipad read it to the dc.

goodnight moon! every time you see the room, and when it says
"and two little kittens
and a pair of mittens"
the mittens are on a drying rack, with two socks pegged up next to them.

but on the page that says
"goodnight mittens"
the mittens are shown in the close-up detail drawing, and now they are on a rack by themselves - no socks.

annoys me.

Unfortunately Peepo! always reminds me of .

In Dear Zoo the grumpy animal is a dromedary. Not a camel. It only has one hump.

poster AScatteringofPoorSardines it always annoys me that when the spell is broken and the parents come alive again they wonder where their daughter is. Does the fairy tell them to put them out of their misery? No! She just turns and winks and smiles at the reader because SHE knows what happened!

That bit never really made sense to me.

Coming late to this thread, but I thought that it was completely unneccessary for the play of Bear Hunt to have the children saying "I miss Mum" (with the clear implication that Mum is dead). If my DCs had asked I would have explained that Mum is obviously away for the week visiting Aunty Ethel, who is recovering from a hip replacement. Actually what annoys me most about Bear Hunt is the writing credit to Michael Rosen. Ditto Little Rabbit Foo Foo "by" Michael Rosen. I've got a brilliant idea for a rhyming book - it's called "London Bridge Is Falling Down", can I have my cheque now?

Oh and count us in with the Very Hungry Caterpillar haters - I didn't spot the upside-down wings for the first fifty times because I was reading it upside down while DD was in her high chair, but I was FURIOUS when I finally noticed. DH gets genuinely cross about the legs on the caterpillar - it's a bloody insect, how difficult is it to give it 6 legs?

Arkady - more Tiger

I read this in the Guardian and assumed...

This is so funny! I just bought "A Squash and a Squeeze" today!

But cannot see the issue with perspective

Surely it is just there is more than one door and window in the house?

But, yes, the teapot does change pattern!

Famous Five: Isn't it George's mother who is a Kirrin, because her family have owned the home for generations. So did George's father take the maternal surname. and which of George's parents is sibling to the other three's parent?

most historical films, including Horrible Histories, set the historical action in Corsican Pine plantations. The trees are all in straight lines! I don't think that's historically accurate; were there any such plantations planted before the 1920s. Or oak underplanted with hazel pre Napoleonic era?

AblativeAbsolute solved the teapot issue on p12 of this thread

I agree with the upside down wings on the butterfly, but I don't mind the random number of legs on the caterpillar. I wasn't sure why I didn't mind, but I've just found the answer:

"A caterpillar has six true legs on its thorax (it is an insect) but it also has prolegs. These are protruding parts of the abdomen that function like legs (but aren't jointed in the way the true legs are). Different species of caterpillar have different numbers of prolegs."

This is why caterpillars can often look like they've got lots of legs.

twocute when we were holidaying in crete, we visited some roman ruins in an olive plantation. the ancient trees were standing in lines, just like a modern orchard.

Bearcrumble, a dromedary is a type of camel, not a separate species.

I live in the Middle East; there are a lot of 'dromedaries' out here and nobody ever, ever, calls them anything other than 'camel' or the Arabic equivalent (jamal).

The two humped camel is a Bactrian camel, but I don't think it gets called that terribly often either.

What do you call a camel with one hump - a Dromedary

What do you call a camel with two humps - a Bactrian

What do you call a camel with three humps - Humphrey!

Sorry, saw desert girl's post in active condos and it reminded me of DD's favourite joke...

Ah now, I've looked at the book and remembered the details of DH's insanely petty objection. Eric Carle has given the caterpillar two pairs of legs at the front and one at the back, when he should actually have given it three pairs of real legs at the front, then some prolegs on the abdomen and maybe a pair of anal prolegs right at the back.

He wishes to point out that he's not an entomologist; he just gets cross easily.

I say peepo changing intonation, so pee is high and po is low- but it sounds more like bee- bow

Charlie and Lola are feral children. Their use of the English language is an abomination.

And they don't eat their greens.

Nuff said.

@`Whoisthatmaskedwoman. "Actually what annoys me most about Bear Hunt is the writing credit to Michael Rosen." Yes! I remember a group of boys used to recite "We're going on a bear hunt" story (though they called it "We're going on a lion hunt" on a school bus in my teens. They would all fall about laughing when they got to the bit where they said, "It's a lion - aaargh!"