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?

Robert Cormier was brilliant but terrifying. I Am the Cheese (about a traumatised boy in a mental facility and you're never quite sure what's real) gave me nightmares.

I also spent my early teens (in the 80s) in a permanent state of terror about nuclear war, and knew all the details of how to build a crappy shelter out of a door etc. 😱

Ellen and the Elves. Very strange from what I can remember. Something about a mincing machine in a sausage factory chopping someone up to put through the mincer.

I recently read Lucy Mangan's 'Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading' and I think many of you would also enjoy it judging by this thread .

The girl in the box.

A truly horrifying book about a girl who is kidnapped in a case of mistaken identity. She’s put in a windowless cellar with food and water but no one ever comes back.

The story is told over a period of weeks or months through her typing (by memory of where the keys are) on her typewriter which is all she had with her when she was taken. It ends with her hours from death having eaten all the food and her accidentally knocking over the jar with the last bit of water.

I have no idea what the author was thinking.

I remember being perplexed reading Moominvalley in November as a child. The lighthearted, fantasy tone of her previous novels had disappeared, although Moominpappa at Sea beforehand was bleak in parts, too.

More recently, reading them with DC, I understood that they were written as Tove Jansson was struggling to come to terms with her mother’s death. Re-reading them, I find the poignancy quite heartbreaking.

Also, I just knew that The Owl Service would get a mention. Gave me scary, sleepless nights as a child. Excellent book, but I’m still not sure I’m up to reading it again!

The avocado baby is one of my favourites , with his weak and feeble family !

@DonttouchthatLarry

I recently read Lucy Mangan's 'Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading' and I think many of you would also enjoy it judging by this thread .

A lovely book!

*nonevernotever

Oh Marianne dreams is wonderful. But all the time slip ones are a bit odd(in a good way) I think. (When Marnie was there; the Saracen lamp; a traveller in time, Charlotte sometimes...)*

Oh yes, those are great! Also some of E. Nesbit's books (e.g. 'The Story of the Amulet'; 'The House of Arden'); Edward Eager's 'The Time Garden' and others; Eileen Dunlop's 'A Flute in Mayferry Street' and 'Robinsheugh'; Hilda Lewis' 'The Ship that Flew'

Inspired by this thread, I bought The Elephant and the Bad Baby for DD (nearly 3). We LOVE the 'rumpeta rumpeta rumpeta' and the increasing trail of angry vendors!

Someone else has mentioned Gwyneth Rae's Mary Plain books. Mary Plain was the first book I read for myself. I remember my parents taking me to Foyles. Dad picked out Mostly Mary as a book he had loved as a child. I read the first few lines of Mostly Mary "Mary Plain sat on the edge of the bath" and that was it, I was hooked. I did find the dream sequences and poems very confusing and struggled to read the letters Mary would send. But I loved the idea of a little bear who could speak and act like a child. But there was a definite weirdness about it.

Some wonderful recommendations here. We bought a wee book before Christmas for my young girls ( aged 6) I hadn't come across it before but it's called The Colour Red about a bear and a girl called Loss. There are a few in the series but this one is beautifully illustrated. A lovely winter read but touches on acceptance and disability as one of the characters is unable to talk. It was recommended as The Best Illustrated Children's Christmas Book 2021 here bookviralreviews.com/the-best-illustrated-childrens-christmas-book-2021/the-best-illustrated-childrens-christmas-book-2021/