To be annoyed by these children's books?

[Booboostoo]

I got these two books on Amazon unseen (we live in the south of France so this is the only option for English language books).

One of them has the following plot: "What's this? A big, scary dog is jumping over the fence! All the other monsters run and hide. But whatever is Boris doing? 'Nice dog, kissy, kissy, kissy, kissy!'. Hooray for clever Boris! His tickly kisses have scared the big dog away!"

Now why would you want to present big dogs as scary? And if you MUST have a scary dog in a children's book why approach it with kisses???

The second one goes: "Bedtime! We need to clean Dudley's teeth. But Dudley won't open his mouth! How can we make Dudley open wide? Shall we tickle under his chin? Shall we stroke his beak? Or shall we tell him off? That worked!"

Now why couldn't we be kissing here? Surely kissing would be a better way to get him to open wide!

It's only a little rant but I am throwing away the first book and defacing the second book with my own dialogue!

Oh is that the one you put you hand in his mouth and make him 'talk'? Mine used to love that Boris book but they are terrified of dogs and I had no idea why. Maybe you've just solved a piece of my puzzle

Yes, they both have super cute monsters but I don't think the same effort was put in the script. We have four dogs so the scary doggy one has to go in the bin!

lol @ 'or shall we tell him off'. Genius

They should have set the big, scary dog on the kid.

That'd make him open his mouth....

They both sound a lot better than the bloody Rainbow Fairies...

Try Dr Miaow's big emergency by Sam Lloyd instead - my daughter's favourite book aged 2-3. She doesn't rate Boris either.

Mine love the Boris one.

Agree with pointythings. Anything is better than those bloody rainbow fairies!

Oooh, and what about Hairy McLairy from Donaldson's Dairy?

lol @ WorralLiberty! I shall try that with the GSD!

Not familiar with Rainbow Fairies yet (DD is only 5.5 months, I freely admit I am buying books mainly for my benefit), but a quick google reveals a lot of sparkle and princessiness!!!

I ordered 5 Dr Seuss last night, might have to stick with the good old ones! Thanks for the Dr Miaow and Donaldson's Diary recommendations!

Oy! Leave Hairy McLairy out of this! I love him!

For a properly creepy read, try reading "not now, Bernard" from an adult perspective. How that made it as a popular kids' book is beyond me

Booboostoo You take me back by mentioning Seuss.

Green eggs and ham, green eggs and ham, I do not like green eggs and ham . . .

but don't overlook Milne

Three cheers for Pooh!
For who?
For Pooh!
Why, what did he do?

As you may guess I knew Seuss by heart as a DF and Milne as a DS!

I never got to read Dr Seuss as a child (grew up in Greece and Dr Seuss doesn't really translate), and although I loved him as an adult you really need a child around to give you the excuse to put on the silly voices and really go for it!

I read Green Eggs and Ham three times yesterday (to OH's great annoyance!) and then posted on another thread "Can you put the bed against the wall? Or the mattress on the floor?"

I used to work as a children's bookseller and you'd be amazed at the strange things that are published. I was once sent an advance copy of a picture book set on a farm where one of the animals went around looking at all the things that were better about the other animals (e.g longer legs). I thought the book would end up with pig realising how beautiful he really is but no, the pig made a bizarre costume that fell apart, leaving him depressed and wanting to hide. The end. Possibly the worst children's book I've ever seen.

mummymccar - sounds awful. I saw one in Waterstones last week, about the other ark full of animals - the one that didn't float!!!!! and now they are all extinct.
Lovely bedtime picture book, not.

We have a book that mentions a 'scary snake' (might be Dear Zoo actually ). I change it to slithery snake as I'm rather fond of them .

mummymccar, that's made me really

YANBU.

There's a series of books which they have at a toddler group we go to sometimes. DD always makes me read them and I loathe them. They're about a bear called Bartholemew who can only say Bah, probably because no one ever interacts with him. He is parented by his dad George, who would benefit from some parenting classes imo.

Eg in Eat Your Dinner, George serves dinner and Bartholemew eats one mouthful then sits playing with it. They eat in silence until George yells "EAT YOUR DINNER!" at him. George finishes his food and goes and gets a cake, cuts a big slice and eats it, then puts it away again and leaves. All in silence. Bartholemew sits and thinks about how much he would like some cake, then he eats all his food and George comes back and cuts him a slice of cake and gives him a cuddle. The end. So. Many. Issues. Wow.

Oh God Dita ...poor Bartholemew! Sounds like George has issues...

Another weird one is Penguin...where a little boy opens his gift to find a stuffed penguin. He gradually ets more and more irritated that the penguin doesn't DO anything. Eventually he tries to feed him to a passing BLUE lion...who in response, eats the boy up!

The penguin then bites the lion on the nose and it sicks up releases the boy. My DD is always when the lion gobbles the llittle lad up.

My older DD was obsessed by my ancient collection of Peter and Jane books...I used to have to edit as I read...so "Jane is helping Mummy do the housework while Peter helps Daddy mend the car" would become "Jane and Mummy are looking for some toys and Daddy can't start the car"

I'm not PFB about gender roles AT ALL.

penguin is my 18 month old dd's favourite book. she carries it around and we read it umpteen times a day. i think it is lovely, the illustrations save it from being scary. i like the unexpectedness of lion (although obviously not so unexpected to me now! i have actually called dd penguin by mistake on more than occaision)

agree about Boris. and many other very odd/wrong childrens books. i refuse to read things i don't like!

Does your DD ever look at you like this 0.0 andthenshewasdone? My DD does....in the manner of a cold hearted penguin. I know the illustrations are lovely...it's just a bit shocking when that lion shows up and eats the boy....the image of his legs sticking out of the lions mouth is full on!

DD3 loved Bartholomew bear, although we only had the goodnight kisses one. I did manage to terrify DD1 without realising with a German book about a bear cleaning his teeth, she only confessed this summer at age 18 how scary it was for her .

WE loved the Bartholomew books! Probably because I read them to mine before they were able to speak.
I like the other bear ones "Good night Little bear" etc. they've only just been passed to the youngest DC from the oldest as we love them so much.
Shhh! is fab (by Sally Grindley), but is only good when read allowed.
Dr Seuss is great but my SIL and BIL hate them for some reason.
We were too scared of "Where the Wild Things are"