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?

@Earthrocknroll If I remember correctly Outside Over There was the inspiration for Labyrinth

I also loved the Elephant and the Bad Baby, and thought Changes was bizarre

No Kiss For Mother, Anthropological cats, awesome pictures. I tried to find a copy about 6 years ago for the family vault. Was about £200. Luckily re-printed about 4 years ago

The Big Biscuit is a masterpiece of comic surrealism about a boy who eats too many biscuits and turns into one, as his mother had warned him.

It does turn out to be a dream, which is an annoying ending, but it's so funny. My favourite part is when he comes downstairs as a biscuit and his mother just looks at him and says, "I told you so".

I loved the giant jam sandwich as a kid used to read it all the time. I'd like to add poo bum to the list and the 3 little wolves and the big bad pig 😂

OP I loved The Long Slide (" 'heads below' shouted Jacko!" when the other toy vomited). Wasn't there a Big Swing as well?
I remember reading an odd story about a child who drew a house and visited it in dreams, at one point scribbled over the windows then in the dream the windows were barred, and there were some strange sinister creatures trying to get in: I can't remember what it was called but was scared by it

I had a copy of this monstrosity as a kid! I think I found it in a jumble sale and I bought it

Not now Bernard is fabulous I love it!

Is Marianne Dreams the one about the strange Grey house. Freaked me out when I was young

@Nonevernotever I've never found anyone else who has read the Saracen Lamp it was one of my childhood favourites, along with A Candle in her Room by the same author.

I also had this book as a teen it was bloody weird

I once read a very weird book to my daughter. I think it was an Australian or South African author about a crocodile who ate everyone including their gum boots. That was the story! No happy endings at all!

If anyone knows it I’d love to know. I’d like to buy it as so awful!

I personally think Roald Dahl books are very strange, and some have quite cruel themes!

In The Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak is strange, but my boys loved it when they were little. If kids love a book, that's the most important thing.

@Pudmyboy

OP I loved The Long Slide (" 'heads below' shouted Jacko!" when the other toy vomited). Wasn't there a Big Swing as well? I remember reading an odd story about a child who drew a house and visited it in dreams, at one point scribbled over the windows then in the dream the windows were barred, and there were some strange sinister creatures trying to get in: I can't remember what it was called but was scared by it

That was Marianne Dreams.

Love the elephant and the bad baby, Not Now Bernard, The Three Robbers, where the wild things are etc. Children’s books should be a bit weird and unsettling!

I was most disturbed by Outside Over There, but that’s probably because I only saw it for the first time as an adult. In the Night Kitchen is also really weird (but great). And “I Hate My Teddy Bear” is much weirder pictorially than it is in the text.

Older books - The Land of Green Ginger, and there’s another one I can’t quite remember - will have to come back to it!

Outside Over There was incredibly creepy. The ice baby the goblins leave… ugh.

@Runningupthecurtains snap- I've never met anyone else who has read them either. I've also got The whistling boy, after Candlemas and a requiem for a princess as well as those two.
@stinkycheeseman No kiss for mother is fab. I'm so glad to hear they've reprinted it. [Off to see if I can buy some copies as presents].

All these books are great. My kids loved Not Now Bernard, but we had another one by the same author called Tusk Tusk about warring black & white elephants that had guns on the end of their tusks. DH found it so distasteful that he effectively banned it!

My kids also loved Goodnight Moon, it was often read on repeat - but I found the colour palette and odd perspective rather ominous.

Not now Bernard, weirdest thing was it was bought for me/my dd by a friend whose a social worker (as it had been her sons favourite) who I’m sure would not approve of ignoring children!

Aha got it - The Wind on the Moon, by Eric Linklater. There was a scary illustration of a baddie that still slightly haunts me. And also My Friend Mr Leakey - though that’s probably more eccentric than weird.

The sequel to 101 Dalmatians when the alien from thr dogstar offers to rescue all dogs from the upcoming nuclear holocaust.

The wolf and the seven kids used to give me nightmares! Mother goat goes out, wolf eats 6 of her kids, goes for a nap. Mother goat comes back, remaining kid tells her what happened. Mother goat cuts open wolfs stomach with scissors finds her kids alive. Gets the kids to get some stones puts stones in wolfs belly, sews him up. Wolf wakes up feels thirsty goes to a Well falls in drowns, everyone is very happy!

I love children's books. For Christmas my one year old DD was given Husherbye by John Burningham. I usually love his books but this one is so weird. I can't figure it out at all. It's really bizarre and kind of unsettling.

It’s my dream to write one. May I come back to this thread after several more years of trying and literary agent near misses, and be a covert success story? Bookmarking this into my soul. The Giant Jam Sandwich is gloriously lavish and grown-up - they say picture books now should be more empowering and written with a child protagonist. The Tiger Who Came To Tea has a quintessentially English matter of fact tone which makes its tiger appearance all the more suspenseful. Where The Wild Things Are, a favourite in our house though the illustrations are borderline for the very young possibly - quite scary looking monsters! Not Now Bernard, always touted by agents as them wanted the next one. Agree, impactful, but sad - a story of a child never properly listened to. Does anyone remember Jeremy James by David Henry Wilson - How To Stop A Train With One Finger and other stories? Devoured those as a kid.

@MissHoney85

I love children's books. For Christmas my one year old DD was given Husherbye by John Burningham. I usually love his books but this one is so weird. I can't figure it out at all. It's really bizarre and kind of unsettling.

Ooh yes, Husherbye is wonderful but a little weird. Cloudland, also by him, is even creepier - but I also love it.

Flat Stanley. Seem to remember he was squashed flat and then sent somewhere in the post.

I think it’s the undertone of (benign?) neglect and alone-ness in John Burningham books that gives them that slightly unsettling character.