Really weird kids’ books from the past

[aweebitlost]

I was reading the DC The Elephant & the Bad Baby tonight and it struck me how very odd it is.

An elephant takes a baby for a joyride to nick a load of food and then everyone is cross with the baby for not saying please?!

Then there’s the Long Slide with the 3 stuffed animals that climb a giant slide, vomit, meet some witches etc and don’t seem to get any pleasure out of the experience.

AIBU or were some kids’ books from the past plain bizarre?! Any other good ones people can think of?

"Flowers In The Attic" is not a kids' book, not sure why it would be mentioned on here.

@Clawdy

"Flowers In The Attic" is not a kids' book, not sure why it would be mentioned on here.

But it did become super-popular amongst the 12-13 age group - many of that age in the 1980s would have read it. Highly unsuitable - I can’t imagine any of us thinking it would be in any way appropriate for that age group now - but I wasn’t at all scarred or even particularly surprised by it. Probably a lot of it went over my head.

Another Marianne Dreams fan here.

Some great book memories here! I've ordered a couple for my kids!

Grimble by Clement Freud
About a 10yo boy with neglectful eccentric parents who go off to Peru, leaving him to fend for himself.

Meal One by Ivor Cutler
About a boy who wakes up with a plum in his mouth and discovers that a plum tree has grown through his bed overnight.

Higgledy Piggledy Pop! by Maurice Sendak
About a dog called Jennie who goes looking for adventure and ends up joining a theatre company

Yes, yes to The Fairy Caravan - that was a brilliant book! I lent someone my copy and never saw it again ... l'm off to amazon, l really want to read it again!
The Last Battle by CS Lewis was just plain nasty and Moomin Valley In November had a really chilly, lost, miserable vibe that was the complete opposite of all the rest of the series - which are the paper equivalent of warm socks, a hug and a nice bit of cake.

@MrsMadderRose

I love Goodnight Moon and DS demanded it every night for ages. My favourite is the "Goodnight nobody" page :)

But the room is hideous and yes way too big. I always redesign rooms in my head so I decided if I lived in that house it would be my room (the tiny rabbit can have a smaller one!) and I used to think about where I'd put everything - as I read through it for the 1000th time...

Were you planning on keeping the Awkward Bear Marital Therapy painting?

Ha ha no. It's a complete redesign and redecorate. But first to go has to be those curtains.

When I was growing up I remember knickerless Nicola.

@Runningupthecurtains A lot of the collections are still available, many with amazing illustrations by Jan Pienkowski. It depends on how old DC are. If they're young, start with A Necklace of raindrops. If they're a bit older, try All and More or A small pinch of weather. She wrote a LOT of short stories, and some of them have been republished in different collections so eg The Serial Garden has all the Mark and Harriet Stories that were originally scattered through half a dozen other collections.

@Ormally Thank you - I can just remember looking up and seeing half a dozen of the medical staff all standing round listening to the story, and wishing that they could have heard my dad read it. He was one of those people who had a real gift for reading aloud.

What about... The Weirdstone of Brisingamen? Also by Alan Garner, perpetrator of The Owl Service (among other things). I started it when I was eight, had the shit scared out of me, and finished it when I was twenty one. It's STILL shit scary, even as an adult!

@Grendalsmum I completely agree re The Last Battle. I didn’t understand it as a child at all. I remember reading an interview with Philip Pullman where he said something about how he hated the way Susan was banned from Narnia because she had gone through a sexual awakening, and it was very important to him to treat that part of life very differently in the Northern Lights books.

Apologies if it’s already been mentioned but by far the strangest Beatrix Potter is surely Ginger & Pickles about the animals whose shop goes bankrupt because they’re always extending credit to unreliable customers?
Pigling Bland mentioned upthread was one of DD’s absolute favourites when she was young. How we loved it when the pigs got away!

@CiaoForDiNiaoSaur I have still got There's a hippopotamus on my roof eating cake! Very strange and uncomfortable book, the Mum having salad for tea because she's on a diet! The Dad smacks the girl! Bizarre.
I also had Help I'm a prisoner in a toothpaste factory @TheSpiral!

My contribution would be 'fatty-puffs and thinifers'. I was a non-NT girl and loved reading and it seems one of my teachers tried to put me off reading to make me less weird. She took away all the books that were 'too hard' including 'around the world in 80 days' while I was half way through reading it. We ended up in a standoff when I got half way with fatty puffs and thinifers and wanted to change it but she wouldn't let me read anything else until I finished it. I ended up in a bitter standoff staring at the same page in reading time for the rest of the school year and reading what I liked at home.

I probably remember my personal war with that teacher far better than the book itself but it was about fat people having fun and eating and thin people being strict and boring, going to war with eachother. Apparently it was about French vs Germans in ww2 so some casual racism thrown in with the body shaming.

@AuntieJoyce. I came on to say Little Rabbit Foo Foo. My kids favourite book too. No one else seems to have heard of it. I often wondered if I had the only copy.
He got his comeuppance. Nasty little bunny.

@pandaeyes44

Enid Blyton's Mr Pinkwhistle. Creepy perv was invisible and often loitered around in childrens bedrooms. There was also one story where he stole a bullies trousers and made him run home in his pants. A product of its time but quite odd and a little sinister now.

This! The one story I actually stopped reading half way through and refused to finish; DS loves Mr Pinkwhistle and kept asking me to finish it so I think I made up an alternative version in the end.

Totally forgot about Mr Pinkwhistle... Lots of Blyton books are quite odd.

@YesILikeItToo I would also be intereated in the podcast

I'd forgotten about Mary Plain. I loved those books.

Anyone else still a bit freaked out by Tottie, The Story of a Doll's House?

@EmmaPaella
Yes Tottie is definitely weird as a children's book.

Phoebe Beeberbee and the hot water bottles

[quote EmmaPaella]@YesILikeItToo I would also be intereated in the podcast

I'd forgotten about Mary Plain. I loved those books.

Anyone else still a bit freaked out by Tottie, The Story of a Doll's House?[/quote]
Tottie - yes - the ending! I won't post a spoiler but the whole thing is terrifyingly gothic.

Also remember Mary Plain - the Fur Coat Lady and the Owl Man were her human friends but IIRC she was very much the bottom of the pile in her bear family.

The Beatrix Potter where Tom Kitten gets wrapped in pastry to be eaten by the rats terrified me as a small child.

The machine gunners by Robert Westall was pretty grim. Group of children find a crashed German plane complete with rotting German pilots corpse. The steal the machine gun from the plane for their den. Set during WW2 in North Shields in North East England( a very bombed place due to the coal mines and nearby Vickers munitions plant) its really dark, but was a big deal at the time. It was part of the ciriculum in the 80s and the BBC even turned it into a TV series

@Redannie118

The machine gunners by Robert Westall was pretty grim. Group of children find a crashed German plane complete with rotting German pilots corpse. The steal the machine gun from the plane for their den. Set during WW2 in North Shields in North East England( a very bombed place due to the coal mines and nearby Vickers munitions plant) its really dark, but was a big deal at the time. It was part of the ciriculum in the 80s and the BBC even turned it into a TV series

Yes - there's an equally dark sequel, Fathom Five, which is well worth a read if you enjoyed the original. Chas & co are sixth form age and the book is more adult in tone - much of the action revolves around a brothel of all things.

The Moomin books - not for the quirky and charming characters and their attitude to life (which I love), but for the gradual and upsetting tonal shift of the books which I did not see coming as a child. The first few have such a lovely carefree 'anything can happen' feel to them (particularly Moominsummer Madness), but the latter few are very lonely and sad, I think. As a younger child I was quite baffled by Moominvalley in November which is about a disconsolate collection of waifs waiting bored and unhappy in the empty Moominhouse for the Moomins to return.

The machine gunners is brilliant! Honestly one of the best books for engaging 11ish year old boys. He wrote excellent teen horror too which is a real find if you can get it in second hand book shops.

The elephant and the bad baby is wonderful- repetition is important for phonologicsl understanding and the fact the baby is naughty enchants the babies reading. My own 2 kids used to love Burningams "Courtney" which is absolutely odd. A family adopt an old dog, it is extremely talented, saves them all from a fire then vanishes. Then one day years later the kids are on a boat that goes adrift and something rescues them as the boat is pulled in. As an adult I never got it but every kid, including my own, i've ever read it to has recognised it as a death metaphor. An old year 2 class I had was obsessed with it. Burningham was very talented imo- tapped right into kids minds.

I loved Z for Zachariah as mentioned here. H.M Hoover also did some great teen dystopias. "This time of Darkness" is excellent. And of course, Swindells "Brother in the Land".