AIBU to have serious concerns about a Julia Donaldson book?

[BabyNameHelpPls]

Specifically, Fox’s Socks.

The fuck is going on with this guy? He’s woken up at 10am, his clothes are all over the place—his hat is underneath the bathmat, and one of his socks on the head of a frankly disturbing Mr. Punch character in the attic… how much did Fox have to drink the previous night?!

Or, as I’m coming to wonder, how involved is the mouse in all this? She’s so unreadable: at first I thought she was just smug, passive-aggressively following him around and not helping to find any of these clothes in bizarre places.

But does she, in fact, have MH issues, possibly even dementia? She pauses halfway through to make a hat out of a rose, for god’s sake. Is Fox a carer for Mouse? Did he sleep through his alarm from sheer stress and exhaustion, to find she had woken up and distributed his belongings throughout the house? Or is this an abusive relationship and she’s gaslighting him into thinking he’s losing his mind?

AIBU to be very worried that this is not an example of healthy dynamics, regardless of character motivations, and damaging to my toddler’s perception of the world? Should I ban the book? Or is there a more nuanced and wholesome interpretation of the work that I’m missing? Any advice welcome.

Sounds like a house party I once went to.

Anything with a singular “stair” I read in a Scottish accent (in my head)! Makes sense then - to me at least

In common use in Scotland.

"Where's Mum"?
"She's up the stair" i.e. She's upstairs.

An example of the wonderful vagaries of language in the British Isles.

ETA: Cross posted with @QuetzalTerfLus

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I started to have problems with Stick Man at the point I made up my own words:

”Stick Man is lying,
under the trees.
Stick Man is drunk,
and covered in bees.”

😆

These comments are properly making me laugh over my morning coffee 😂

Haha I think this every time I read Fox's Socks! I always assumed they'd been on a bender the night before and now have to get ready in a hurry for a wedding or something (scarecrows, maybe?)
And yy to all the duck pictures though I think if them as the equivalent of those pictures of big fat sheep and pigs and things that you find in cottages.

This

I live with two people who have ADHD. Regular morning.

I freaking love this thread! 😂😂

I'm 10 years and 2 kids deep into Julia Donaldson books, we all love them here.
Must admit I've never thought too deep into this one - however having spent the morning searching for...

• a missing school bag (in the downstairs toilet)
• PE hoody (made into a nest for a teddy)
• a water bottle (in the wash basket)
• and finally, a single trainer (DD wouldn't admit to where she eventually found it!)

... I think my kids have been taking their inspirations from Fox... 😬🙃

Is fox a carer for mouse?

That made me snort.

Ah yes, the book we called "the morning after Fox's Big Night Out". Thinking of Fox with an awful hangover got me through reading it for the eleventh thousandth time.

I also enjoyed Mog and Bunny because there's a drawing of the Mum getting blitzed in the garden when they are all having an ill advised BBQ when the weather is clearly about to change.

All the best classic children’s tv and books of the 70s and 80s were clearly written under the influence of something. I’m pleased to hear that the tradition is being preserved 😂

And of course Stickman, the feckless dad who waltzes off on a round the world adventure leaving his wife and three kids living in a tree.

Does he pay maintenance? Don't be silly!

But if course he shows up with presents (that he didn't even buy) at Christmas like the uninvolved Disney Dad that he is.

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I really wasn’t impressed by the fox and socks series. Almost everything else she wrote is better! Highway rat, superworm, rhyming rabbit are some of the best. I did like room on the broom but my children repeatedly acting it out for about a year put me off.

What about the Gruffalo's Child? Where the mouse has turned every animal against the Gruffalo and made them all part of some weird conspiracy, and the book ends by him following the Gruffalo Child home, and standing over them to watch them sleep, like an absolute psychopath.
That one always seemed off to me!

That being said - applying adult themes to kids books is my favourite way to stay sane(ish) after reading them the 100th time.

This is the bit that always bothers me the most! A whole books worth of effort and he never puts them on again - although perhaps every morning is like this and some days he just gives up..

What I would like to know is why Tabby McTat doesn't know where Fred lives. Perhaps Fred is homeless? (Though not in the TV adaptation). But even then I think he would have some regular places he'd go to sleep. Why doesn't Fred bother putting up Lost Cat posters? I don't think they actually want to find each other.

Scarecrows' Wedding. Groom-to-be scarecrow sent off to find a few basic items for wedding and takes so long that farmer makes new pervy-looking replacement who sidles on up to bride-to- be, making disparaging remarks about her hair and setting light to her with cigar and leaving her to burn to death. Being a kid's book, forensic pathologists are not necessary but, if I were bride to be, I would have binned off dopey as well and created my own true-crime podcast as fair warning to all straw-haired maidens.

The most unbelievable part though is that the BBC thought this was a suitable JD book to televise...

I think it's fairly clear that Fred is homeless - and when Tabby goes wandering 'up and down and all over town' in search of Fred it does look like he's going to look in places a homeless person might be (under a bridge)?

But isn't Mouse making Fox toast, and posing fetchingly with a flower? Feels like she may still be into him? And aren't there pictures of a fox relative around the place?

I do agree that they've clearly done it the night before though - and in quite spectacular fashion, given the way the clothes have ended up scattered absolutely everywhere.

I have read these books too many times.

Yes, that's what I always thought too, though in the TV version he does have a house. But then I also thought, surely he has places he regularly goes at night, and he and McTat would both look there first.