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?

My dad read Mrs Pepperpot to us, I loved it.

A bought a book called The Little Red Tractor or something for DS which had a very rural setting. One character got manure all over their eyes and staggered around for the whole story getting into bother. Every page had a picture of this shit-covered person. Weird.

My nomination is Where the Wild Things Are.

Max is sent to bed without his supper and sails away for a year and a day to the place where the wild things are... they were going to eat him all up but instead make him their kind and cavort through the jungle with him until he smells something nice and escapes to find his supper waiting and still warm.

Apparently it was banned in some parts of the states because psychologists thought the idea of being sent to bed without supper may emotionally scar children. IIRC the prospect of a child being EATEN by the wild things didn't unduly concern them!

I loved the Elephant and the Bad Baby as a child, so got it for my kids, and was disappointed. I'd totally forgotten the "please" bit - it ruins it!

I also loved In the Night Kitchen. Looking at that again recently, it is just really weird! It has no plot to speak of and begs so many questions. As a child I thought it was truly magical and wonderful.

Not Now Bernard is a classic that I still love. Bernard becomes the monster (with sad small Bernard still inside) because he's neglected. Doubt anyone would publish it now as picture books are all about heartwarming positive messages.

My heart broke for Pippi Longstocking. After everyone went home she was all alone. I get that children’s books don’t have to be realistic, and that she seemed to love her independence, but I always wondered how her father could leave her for weeks and weeks alone.

Just remembered another completely insane one - The Beast of Monsieur Racine. About a man who has this bizarre monster to look after that runs him ragged but it's actually 2 children in a disguise. Can't remember what happens but it's bonkers.

Goodnight Moon.
I find it really creepy and sinister.
There is something "off" about the illustrations as well.

It's like a children's picture book directed by David Lynch.

My uncle bought me a selection of books including one called 'The children that lived a bath.' The parents go missing, the landlord kicks them out and the local farmer lets the family lived in his barn. A lady from the local authority puts the onus on Susan the oldest daughter to look after the family.

In more modern books, the dinosaur that pooped - I think they are awful, DD laughs like a drain every time she forces me to read them.

I give this article as my gift to anyone who ever wondered "wtf is up with the decor in Goodnight Moon":

theuglyvolvo.com/issues-goodnight-moon-bedroom/

Thank you so much Zoe

@thepastisanothercountry

OP I had both the Long Slide and The Long Dive as a child and absolutely loved them. They were based on toys owned by children of the authors. As a child I saw nothing wrong with meeting witches, nearly being knocked off ladders by a sonic boom or sliding under rainbows or even cooking a meal on the sea bed . Barley was pathetic though

Who remembers Burglar Bill who lived in a stolen house and slept in a stolen bed eating stolen food - he steals a baby by accident and ends up being burgled by its mother (who was also a burglar) seeing the error of his ways putting everything he'd stolen back, becoming a baker and marrying her!

The things that annoys me the most about Burgular Bill is the lady burgular is wearing high heels. The whole story annoyed me, but who goes on the rob wearing stilletos?

Also not as weird as many of the books mentioned on here, but I've always been disproportionately pissed off by the Large families attitude to cake. It irritates me more than their all-or-nothing-no-middle-ground attitude to diet and exercise.

Grandma large sends a cake in the post. Not a postable cake like a fruitcake, it's clearly a sponge cake wrapped in brown paper and expected to survive the post.
They are on a restrictive diet so they put the cake on a high shelf... for guests.
How long will it sit there before those lucky, lucky, guests drop round some old, dry, sponge cake? Oh its OK, the guests are spared because the family all sneak down in the middle of the night to secretly binge on the cake.

Healthy.

@Cheeseandlobster

Marvin Wanted More. Ds used to love it. A sheep is hungry so it eats the whole world. Then it realises it is lonely so it vomits it all back up again and everything is good again albeit a bit upside down

I had totally forgotten about this book! I was definitely DDs my favourite book when she was little - I used to do the upchuck noise and everything

The other day I randomly remember a book called Eloise about a naughty girl who lives in a posh hotel. Anyone remember that one? I vaguely remember it was based on the childhood of the child of a rich and famous Hollywood star. I often wondered why they lived in a hotel - if they were rich.

@TotoAnnihiliation

My uncle bought me a selection of books including one called 'The children that lived a bath.' The parents go missing, the landlord kicks them out and the local farmer lets the family lived in his barn. A lady from the local authority puts the onus on Susan the oldest daughter to look after the family.

In more modern books, the dinosaur that pooped - I think they are awful, DD laughs like a drain every time she forces me to read them.

The children who lived in a barn? By Eleanor Graham? I still have that book! I adored it!

Loved Flat Stanley!

Did anyone else read The Owl Service by Alan Garner, about a dinner set with owl pictures. Scary quotes something along the lines she wants to be flowers and you make her owls. I was an avid reader (late 60's early 70's child) but this book terrified me

@pudmyboy Marianne Dreams, also made into a film called Paper House which gave me major nightmares when I was a kid 😳

@Ginpostersyndrome

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.

I remember that! I must have had that book too.

The Mary Plain books were very odd but Ioved them. She had a friend called The Owl Man.

@MONSTERSALAD yes the children that lived in a barn. Not a bath. What a typo!

Rebecca's World by Terry Nation (totally bonkers story about a girl who goes through a telescope to another planet)

The Tree That Sat Down and the rest of the series by Beverly Nichols. The Mountain of Magic especially.

@conflictednow

Did anyone else read The Owl Service by Alan Garner, about a dinner set with owl pictures. Scary quotes something along the lines she wants to be flowers and you make her owls. I was an avid reader (late 60's early 70's child) but this book terrified me

"She wants to be flowers but you make her owls. You must not complain, then, if she goes hunting."

Cracking book. Alan Garner was my favourite author as a teenager. There's also a lot of class conscious stuff in it - Roger and Alison the upper-middle-class teens Vs Gwyn the son of the housekeeper. It was my introduction to the phrase "barrack-room lawyer".

I remember my grandad reading my Strewwelpeter. I read it to my own kids who also loved it. I doubt the picture of Conrad Suck-a-Thumb standing with no thumbs and blood dripping to the floor would pass muster now. The same with Harriet and the Matches bursting into flames.

Any one else read The Indian In The Cupboard?

my introduction to the phrase barrack-room lawyer

I had to Google this and have realised that I’m a barrack-room lawyer on mumsnet