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.

Rod Campbell again - whenever I read Oh Dear, it annoys me that the rabbit says 'squeak'. Now, I'm not saying that rabbits are incapable of squeaking, but it is not their defining noise. They are clearly from the 'snuffle snuffle' genus that also includes hedgehogs and the like.

Yes, I agree but it is then on the other side of the sun. You'll never see it C-shaped after sunset in the nornthern hemiphere.

Just before sunrise, yes, but the context of so many books is its shape at bedtime...

smethwitchbelle my husband has the same theory, though he hadn't thought it through as far as non-payment of water rates

*northern

Ironically Meg and Mog gets the moon right...

The ones that have annoyed me most of all are those bloody 'That's Not My...' things. Pictures of bunnies claiming that their eyes are too shiny when the eyes in question are quite clearly hardly shiny at all. Come on, would it really be too hard to make the words match the bunnies a bit better? What the feck is the use of them if they are so bloody inaccurate?

Oh, whoever mentioned the pedantic monkey in Monkey Puzzle - I also like that book because of the pedantically correct 'none of my babies looks like me' (instead of 'look like'). Go Julia.

Though, on the reverse side, I don't like the Gruffalo fish in Tiddler. I don't mind JD's little in-jokes usually (e.g. Stick Man and the Gruffalo toy popping up in Tabby McTat) because they're fairly plausible, but I hate the fact that all the other fish in Tiddler are 'real', and then you get this bloody Gruffalo fish swimming about.

LOL at the whole thread. Especially Meg's vag which nearly made me spit my sandwich out...I mean if you're going to post about great gaping holes in the same post, please be careful with your juxtaposition

The one I have the most trouble with is

'If at first you do not see'.

The title is bad enough being the first part of a well known proverb but WRONG

and then the horrendous, terrifying pictures
DS1 loved it
The times I tried to sneak it intothe recycling

Dear Lord

yy agree HATE and will never buy/borrow any books that make spiders scary, or going to bed scary, being in the dark scary, anything with monsters under to bed.

Boooks are to soothe and educate and enjoy ffs NOT to create phobias and fears where before there were none

I mean it's passive aggressive authorship isn't it

it's really about frightening kids out of their wits

but she got away with it. I know not how. Possibly because it was a sinister fairly interesting concept

and I really, REALLY shouldn't say this but the book we had where there were sticky patches on the page, meant to be chocolatey fingerprints - with little waxed paper covers to stop them getting fluff all over them before you had left the shop.

I think it was a poppy cat one

WHOSE idea was that?

I quite liked the gruffalo fish.

the snail and the whale just annoys me. Unsure as to why.

I also agree with the poster who has an issue with the writers who don't know where animals live - Yes, YOU, Mr 'Rumble in the Jungle' ....

I often correct 'daddy's beer' to 'mummy's wine' in The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Reads much better that way [hgrin].

I have to swap 'nice' for 'lovely' in Zog, it just doesn't scan otherwise (possibly not written for northeners?)

there should be more books akin to 'You Choose' so many ways to read/invent from it. Brill.

I remember the book about vegetable/ fruit faces which you turned upside down and it made a face, or something. that was fabulous.

The Little Princess books - not sure which came first the cartoon or the books but she is always wearing a nightdress. Does she not either wear pyjamas sometimes or want to get dressed? The General manages to wear full dress uniform but she can't even put on some socks.

I like to tell myself that they made up the story about the tiger coming to tea because her mum went on a daytime wine bender and forgot to go to the shops.

And while we are at it. those STUPID books about transport modes - when did a train last go 'Toot, Toot' or a bike go 'pedal, pedal,pedal' - and the added hell is a son who really loves the book, knows it off by heart and has a dad who reads it to him religiously, so he knows when you try to correct the sh*t text ...

I hate books that include singing bits and then you have to make up a tune. For example, the giants song in 'The Smartest Giant in Town'. Dh and I have totally different tunes, both equally tuneless!

Never liked the way every Mr Man seems to live in a Land of his own, which is entirely dictated by the particular personality trait which defines him. It doesn't make any sense!

Or when Mr Small finally gets to feel big when he meets Little Miss Tiny, who is the only person smaller than him.

Oh yes yes yes re Bear Hunt. That book annoys me in so many ways. I thought the rest of the world loved it; I'm so relieved. I mean, it's not a blimmin' beautiful day if there's a snowstorm, is it?

We have a book called 'Puppies' where on every page all the puppies like doing something except one. But on the page where 'All puppies like to sniff. Except this one' it is not at all clear which one doesn't like to sniff as they are all apparently sniffing. Is it a trick? Is the text in the wrong place? Bugs me every time.

In the Bear Hunt, after the deep cold river, the clothes are dry.

I love Winnie the Witch, but there is one picture that bugs me, in Winnie at the Seaside. Winnie's stuff is getting wet because of the rising tide, so she moves further up the beach. In fact, she moves to an entirely different section of the beach, with no people and a totally different backdrop. Then, in the next picture, she's back on the original crowded beach, shouting after her broomstick.

We have one of those annoying Thomas the Tank Engine books where you press a picture to get a sound ("Peep peep!"). This must be an American edition, because the story revolves around a kitten that has snuck into one of Thomas's cars.

The lions and tigers together used to really annoy me too, until we went to Cotswold Wildlife park and they have... Asiatic lions!
So, technically, they could be in the same rough environment...

DS came home with 'Counting on Pizza' last week - not only is it a shit story and mind-numbingly repetitive, but a) Mum says 'I'm sick of cooking, we're having pizza tonight and dad's paying' [hangry] and b) he forgets his wallet [hhmm] and she's only got about £2.50 but they still manage to buy some pizza. Just not one with three peppers on it (yet only four bits of pepperoni, five bits of ham... I could go on).

This thread has made my day

Can I just add Richard Scary - yes, YOU Mr Scary:

In (I think) the Busy Busy World book the small creature (whose name I don't recall, as I refused to read the book more than once) saves a seed from his COOKED cob of sweetcorn, which he then plants and grows into a sweetcorn plant.

I usually change the 'too scary' snake reference in Dear Zoo to 'too scaly' although I am not sure something can really be 'too scaly'.

I don't mind the upside down wings in 'The Very Hungry Catepillar' but I do wish the butterfly was centered so its body was over the fold of the page so you could flap the book at the end to make it look as though it was flying. That makes me feel sad every time.

We have an alphabet book with items beginning with each letter on its pages. On one page it says 'ice lolly' and there is no ice lolly .

[rage]