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?

We're Going On a Bear Hunt. Absolutely can't stand it- so weird, why are the family tramping through mud and dark forests and storms to go find a bear? And then when the bear is chasing them and pressed up against the front door trying to get in their house? Big fat nope from me, creepy AF!

Toddler DD was given a vintage copy of Chicken Little recently. It was a lovely story, until the Fox massacres all the birds and eats them. Grim. That went straight in the charity box.

That's NOT a kids' book!

But lots of MNers read it as children, hence it comes up.

@user1745

I remember reading a book the basic plot of which went as follows:

A boy is at boarding school. His parents move house and apparently forget to tell him. He returns home and finds the house empty. Neighbours, seeing an unaccompanied child on the doorstep, call the police and a social worker comes but he runs away. I can't remember what happens after that but ultimately he unexpectedly finds his parents, sitting in a cafe crying for him.

It's entirely possible that I misunderstood the plot. I only wish I could remember what the book was called so I could find if the parents really were that awful!

Are you thinking of Tim All Alone by Edward Ardizzone? He goes to sea (a lot) and one day returns home to find his parents have moved. He finds them in a cafe at the end as you describe.

The Tim books are good but that one in particular is gut wrenching

Have you ever read a Victorian children's book though?

These courtesy of one of my favourite twitter accounts (has regular similar content, can thoroughly recommend!)

@MostNamesAreTaken

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

The Starlight Barking. It was lovely. Sirius the dog star alien was lonely and he offered all the dogs the chance to go with him to avoid possible nuclear war. However some stray dogs didn’t want to give up the possibility of finding a human to love. In the end all the dogs want to stay.

@lostindubai

Have you ever read a Victorian children's book though?

These courtesy of one of my favourite twitter accounts (has regular similar content, can thoroughly recommend!)

My DF (born 1916) had one, called ‘Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories’.

The horrific one that really stuck with me, was about a little boy who went to church and heard the vicar quote the line, ‘If thou shalt not save thy life tonight, tomorrow thou shalt be slain.’

Well, he worried that he didn’t understand it, so his nice kind mother explained that it meant you must repent of your sins before going to sleep every night, just in case.

So he did, and went off to sleep quite happily.

But lo, when his mother went to wake him in the morning, ‘he was quite still and cold upon the bed! He had died in the night! Of what cause even the doctor was not quite sure.’

But it was all right, because he’d repented of his sins before going to sleep.
How my DF grew up such a cheerful, jolly type, after ‘bedtime stories’ like that’ I will never know!

@Lonelydaisy

Each peach pear plum

Eeny meeny macka racka rare rye domma chica rum pum push out

I remember a book of stories that my little sibling had called something like Stories For Six Year Olds. There was a couple who fell in love as small children and she always had a ribbon round her neck. Every year on his birthday he'd ask her to take the ribbon off and every year she'd say "no please don't ask that". Then one year she gave in and undid the ribbon and her head fell off. And how sad he was. The end.
That's the weirdest one I ever read.

@errnerrcallnernnernnern

That's NOT a kids' book!

But lots of MNers read it as children, hence it comes up.

It's not relevant to this thread though, which is about (young) children's books for children, which are a bit odd.

(I read Flowers in the Attic as a young teen btw!)

I read The Starlight Barking as a child and even then thought it was a bit bloody odd (certainly compared to 101 Dalmations).
My other memorable but odd books were Borobil (which featured a giant being cut in half lengthways with a picture!), the marvellously peculiar The Land of Green Ginger which I very much doubt would be politically acceptable today, and The 13 clocks.

Correction Borrobil

We had one called The Amazing Bone about a pig called Pearl who finds a magic bone that saves her from all sorts of tight spots. It was a very odd book. I'm not in a hurry to find it for my daughter!

@RabitWhole

We're Going On a Bear Hunt. Absolutely can't stand it- so weird, why are the family tramping through mud and dark forests and storms to go find a bear? And then when the bear is chasing them and pressed up against the front door trying to get in their house? Big fat nope from me, creepy AF!

Toddler DD was given a vintage copy of Chicken Little recently. It was a lovely story, until the Fox massacres all the birds and eats them. Grim. That went straight in the charity box.

Maybe Robert Munsch’s I’ll Love You Forever would be more your style…

I love Bear Hunt! I always thought it was a bored family on a rainy day doing a 'bear hunt' in their own house and rushing around to keep the kids entertained. That's what we do, anyway The end, with snuggling up under the duvet, is the best bit!

@isittimetogotobed

The mole who had a poo on his head

love love love this book.

Kids adored it.

The mole who knew it was not his business (or something)

Not really a weird book but when I read My Naughty Little Sister to my daughter when she was about 4/5 she was fascinated by the old fashioned ness about it. She went through a stage of calling me "Mother". She wanted to know when she could go on a train journey by herself like the Little Sister did - put on a train age 4 all by herself with a cheery "can you make sure she gets off at X station please" to the guard from Mother !!

I also love Little Rabbit Foo Foo. I used to volunteer read at my daughters primary school and I hadn't read the book before but I saw it was Micheal Rosen so I enthusiastically read away to a bunch of the kids....but then I got to the end the end. I totally wasn't expecting it. I remember making the kids laugh with a shocked "Wait....what...that's the end !! That's an terrible ending"

@pinkstripeycat

Little B Sambo. V v racist and pointless and weird

I came on to say this. As an adult it's horrifying for obvious reasons. But even as a kid, when some of that stuff goes over your head, I always wondered 'why are they reading this weird book to me?'

Also yes to Ant and Bea and (shudder) Struwwelpeter. But Where the Wild Things Are is gorgeous and so tapped in to the experience of what it's like to be a kid disappearing into your own imagination.

I used to love the Elephant and the Bad Baby!

I've just remembered another one I read at my daughters school. It was an Allan Alhberg one (which are often a bit nutty) about a divorced couple who were fighting over the ownership of a pig and wanted to cut the pig in half.
I remember I was reading it to the children at school but the teacher wanted to start a different lesson and I hadn't got to the end. I was all "no no no I NEED to know if this pig survives"

We loved the weirdness of Anthony Browne's books.
Particularly Bear goes to Town: Bear takes a walk in town and uses his magic pencil to rescue his new animal friends from an evil man in black.
And The Piggybook: Mum leaves her lazy family and they become more and more piggy.
I have heard them described as sophisticated picture books. And they were really popular in our house.

For me it is a book called Help! I'm a Prisoner in a Toothpaste Factory! I have never found anyone else who read it. Deeply, deeply strange both in the style of writing, the characters and the plot - boy gets messages in toothpaste from someone asking for help and discovers world is being taken over by dentist aliens, or something.

@TheSpiral

For me it is a book called Help! I'm a Prisoner in a Toothpaste Factory! I have never found anyone else who read it. Deeply, deeply strange both in the style of writing, the characters and the plot - boy gets messages in toothpaste from someone asking for help and discovers world is being taken over by dentist aliens, or something.

Sounds fab!

In the illustration of EachPeachPearPlum, the baby's basket & baby fall in the river & get swept away until the 3 bears spot baby bunting. So there is an undercurrent of danger in the sunny pictures.

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.