To think bedtime stories should not be emotional?!

[Cadela]

This is lighthearted!

Just read Dd the Paper Dolls and got slightly choked up at the boy chopping them up, full on holding back sobs at the memories bit with granny 😭 Trying to read a bedtime story with a massive lump in your throat is a nightmare!

The other one that does it to me is ‘The Girls’ when they all come back to the tree all grown up.

In my defence I’ve been an easy crier since pregnancy and happy to show Dd all emotions but sobbing during bedtime isn’t what I planned 😂

Is there a bedtime book that does it for you too?

I knew it would be paper dolls before I read the post! Read it once, sobbed, never again.

Not Little Dorrit, I mean Dombey and Son: kills me:
The two medical attendants exchanged a look across the bed; and the Physician, stooping down, whispered in the child's ear. Not having understood the purport of his whisper, the little creature turned her perfectly colourless face and deep dark eyes towards him; but without loosening her hold in the least.The whisper was repeated.'Mama!' said the child.The little voice, familiar and dearly loved, awakened some show of consciousness, even at that ebb. For a moment, the closed eye lids trembled, and the nostril quivered, and the faintest shadow of a smile was seen.'Mama!' cried the child sobbing aloud. 'Oh dear Mama! oh dear Mama!'The Doctor gently brushed the scattered ringlets of the child, aside from the face and mouth of the mother. Alas how calm they lay there; how little breath there was to stir them!Thus, clinging fast to that slight spar within her arms, the mother drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all the world.

Basically over emotional. That was the good thing about Enid Blyton, there was literally no complex emotion whatsoever!

😂

Though actually, I take issue. There was a lovely little short story called She was always at the bottom which made me and my brother cry. Not typical of Blyton however, I agree.

I knew which story you were going to write about before I opened the thread. YANBU.

ooh haven't read that! It feels like she was very very well buttoned up in most of her writing, but maybe it peeped out in a short story because it might have been less written to the formula of three children and a secret treasure or whatever.

My immediate thought, apart from TPD, was:

Then Bella did a very kind thing.

Glad I'm not the only one!

I cannot read the snail and the whale. Choke up with tears every time.

When we lost a close relative, I had to p
use youtube videos of bereavement books, as I couldn't actually read the. Out loud. Badger's parting gifts and the memory tree were beautiful though.

I saved my copy of The Velveteen Rabbit for my son! This is it with my name written in! I've just read it for the first time in ages and yes, still blubbed!

I realise very different type of book clearly (!) but this reminds me of my GCSE English teacher who simply could not read out loud the last chapter of Of Mice and Men (we had been reading aloud throughout as a class), she had been teaching it for years and still got her everytime...

Stickman, at the end when he finally makes it back to the family tree.

Two words: Greyfriars Bobby 🐕 💀 😭

Paper Dolls always used to get me too.

I was fine with Stick Man, but when DD was about 2 it really got to her - but mainly the happy ending bit when he found his family. We hid the book away from her for a while, as she got older she was OK.

I am terrible with Disney / Pixar films though - Lilo & Stitch, Inside Out (Bing Bong!!!!!) and of course, UP.

For me it was Dogger! I just have to hear "and then Bella did a very kind thing" and I'm away!

Once There Were Giants ::shudder::

Also Tabby McTat.

Paper Dolls and Guess How Much I Love You have both got to me! So glad I'm not alone.

We have Dogger and we read it once and I honestly can't remember it, but my son didn't want to read it again! I think I may have to dig it out now.

I absolutely do not want to know a single thing about Goodbye Mog!

I saw this thread title and before I opened it up it took me straight back to reading ‘Paper Dolls’ and sobbing all over my daughter’s head (she was too young to notice!) that book killed me - just reading the title makes me teary

For older children, my son read Private Peaceful to me as one of his reading books from. I properly sobbed at the end and made his reading diary very soggy 😬😄

Once I was in the library and overheard a dad reading Goodbye Mog to his DC. He'd picked it up without knowing what it was about. I'll always remember the way his voice faltered when suddenly it began to dawn on him what was happening... then a rustle of pages as he looked ahead ... and a long pause while he recalibrated. "Keep going, Daddy!"

For us it was always The Story of the Dancing Frog by Quentin Blake. My DP could hardly get through it.

I’m still on the edge of tears now nearly 4 hours later.

Too many to recount, I'm a hopeless sobber!! Not a sweet rolling tear, total snotty snotfest!

It was the bit for me when the girl grew up and came a mummy and made paper dolls with her little girl 😭😭😭

I didn't know this one existed! I don't think I ever want to read it ☹️

Yup, I sobbed reading this to my lovely first Reception class. They were very nice to me and one patted my legs!

I thought it was just me! Made me absolutely weep the other day, had to excuse myself from bedtime!

Yes!

Just reading your description of it has me crying. My kids are older and it perfectly captures an adult's eye view of the end of childhood. Far too perfectly!