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Original poster

Damn you Anna Sewell!

48 replies

OrmIrian · 14/01/2009 13:55

Thanks to you I spent about an hour last night comforting DD who has been reading Black Beauty. She watched the DVD last night having read a bit of the book. OMG! Tears, sobbing, snot, the works. 'But darling it's only a story' - 'Yes but things like really ha-a-a-ape-e-en.....' Sob sob.

She loves horses (well all animals). Problems is I sympathise and started welling up too

She made me take the books and DVD away and thrown them in the bin! I didn't. I hid them.

We had this when DS#1 watched Animal Farm when Boxer was taken away.

I really should learn my lesson.

OP posts:
OhBling · 14/01/2009 13:56

I cannot even see the cover of BB without almost crying. Ditto the Incredible Journey. I feel DD's pain.

for you but no suggestions.

Kathyis6incheshigh · 14/01/2009 13:57

You don't want to over-protect them. My dd sings Humpty Dumpty with some spurious verse about 'Humpty Dumpty counted to ten, Humpty Dumpty got up again'

georgimama · 14/01/2009 13:58

How old is she?

I loved Black Beauty as a child (and still do) even though it made me cry. I found it carthartic (not a word I knew but I understood the concept of) and would deliberately read it when I needed to have a cry to feel better about life in general.

Original poster
OrmIrian · 14/01/2009 13:59

9, georgimama.

It is so sad though

OP posts:
georgimama · 14/01/2009 14:12

I think I was about 8 or 9 when I read it for the first time.

Did she finish it or was it the bit with Ginger that got her? Because the ending is really really lovely and always makes me cry in a good way, "My troubles are over. I am at home." If she had got to the end it might have cheered her up!

Don't let her read Charlotte's Web or Little Women!

Original poster
OrmIrian · 14/01/2009 14:23

She didn't finish it. She had read about 20 pages and then watched the DVD.

She is a voracious reader but gets put off longer books. She's much happier reading more shorter books. Very odd. At her age I'd tackled LOTR I gave her my copy of the Little White Horse but she won't touch it.

OP posts:
georgimama · 14/01/2009 14:29

20 pages? Bless her.

She couldn't even have got to the bit about Ginger then! It must have been Squire Gordon's wife nearly dying and the horses being sold off that upset her.

Best not let her read the rest if the first 20 pages upset her that much!!!!!

MaryAnnSingleton · 14/01/2009 14:34

my favourite bit in Anne of Green Gables is where Matthew dies, not because I wanted him to die, but it just fascinated me- even the chapter title was intruiging and haunting (of course I can't remember it now when I want to- )

GrimmaTheNome · 14/01/2009 14:38

I'm the one who bursts into tears. Just finished reading Good Wives to DD, with much breakage of voice and sniffling... from me, DD looking somewhat askance at me. [Little Women comparitive doddle].

OhBling · 14/01/2009 14:40

You see, I can cope with PEOPLE dying. It's the animals that get me.

Agree totally on Anne - I cried, but loved it!

georgimama · 14/01/2009 14:41

I meant Good Wives, I forgot there is the whole separation of the original one volume into two thing which means some people go when you say how sad Little Women is.

thumbwitch · 14/01/2009 14:44

s'life though, innit... I always used to get upset watching things like Black Beauty, Bambi, Dumbo, and cowboy films where the horses got shot/hurt. Never worried about the humans either!

However, I'd be more worried if she wasn't upset by it, tbh!

Original poster
OrmIrian · 14/01/2009 14:58

I sobbed and sobbed at Jenny by Paul Gallico (?). So sad at the end. Thankfully DS#1 and I were reading it and he is a soppy as me so we both had a good old weep together.

OP posts:
georgimama · 14/01/2009 15:07

Has anyone read Forever Amber? India Knight recommends it as essential teenage girl reading in "The Shops" but I have never heard of it. Apparently an absolute misery fest!

Takver · 14/01/2009 20:28

OMG don't let her loose on the bit in the Little house on the Prarie bit where Laura's dog died. That had me and dd in floods of tears

thumbwitch · 15/01/2009 22:32

I have just read last Saturday's R&J pages in the Express (I know , but it's the only paper I will let DH bring into the house that has his required level of football coverage - we leave it in the bathroom for reading on the loo) and there is a bit from Richard that suggests parents are less likely these days to read their DC "frightening" or upsetting stories, like Li'l Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel etc. Apparently they don't want them to be exposed to the fear or sadness. But, it is a learning tool, isn't it? Li'l Red Riding Hood is a very good metaphor for not taking people at face value, H&G says not to run off by yourselves, etc., etc. His suggestion is that children are not as aware of risk these days because people don't want to frighten them - then linked it to seeing boys on ice on the local pond. Bit spurious - BUT DH also saw boys on the ice on our local pond last week, one was out in the middle, JUMPING to see if he could crack the ice! Idiot. He was lucky it didn't break - he might not have survived it.

So, all the point of this ramble and in this section is, do you think he had a point? OP's DD is obviously a very sensitive little girl but should she avoid these things to protect her sensitivities, or be exposed to them to learn from them?

Merrylegs · 16/01/2009 11:42

Neigh.

Poor Ginger.

I survive though.

MoominMymbleandMy · 17/01/2009 03:45

"Forever Amber" - a miseryfest?!

More of a shagfest - the heroine is a Becky Sharp type who sleeps her way to the top, ie becomes one of Charles II's mistresses.

She does lose her true love, but he was a snobbish prat, anyway.

I cried about Ginger and the horses who died in the stable fire. So did my DD in turn.

It does have a happy ending, though.

seeker · 17/01/2009 05:19

Don't give her "Good Wives" then - I can make myself cry just thinking about Beth dying "and on the breast where she took her first breath, Beth quietly took her last, with no more farewell than a little sigh and a loving look"

Not that I know it by heart or anything.....

georgimama · 17/01/2009 06:41

Seeker, you've just made me cry!!! Posts quoting from Black Beauty or Good Wives need some sort ofhealth warning!

seeker · 17/01/2009 07:10

Oh, georgiemama - what about the bit where Jo takes Beth on holiday and Beth tells her that she's not going to get better.....?

Watch out, or I'll quote the bit from the Anne of Green Gables books where Anne's first baby dies...

georgimama · 17/01/2009 07:36

I don't know how this is possible but I have never read Anne of Green Gables.

oranges · 17/01/2009 07:50

This is part of Matthew's death in Anne of Green Gables. Read the last line [hmmm]

"When the doctor came he said that death had been instantaneous and probably painless, caused in all likelihood by some sudden shock. The secret of the shock was discovered to be in the paper Matthew had held and which Martin had brought from the office that morning. It contained an account of the failure of the Abbey Bank."

seeker · 17/01/2009 07:53

Georgiemama - get on to Abe books and buy them at once. I think it's Anne of the Island when the baby dies - read and weep! (literally)

oranges - prophetic or what!

seeker · 17/01/2009 07:54

thumbwitch - if they had read the Chalet School books they would have known that ice ALWAYS breaks. ALWAYS!

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