which childrens book./set of books do you hate the most?

[Blandmum]

For me it would have to be the Mr Men books

and you?

I agree that the Rainbow Fairies are a bit shit, but I have to protest about Lemony Snicket. He's superb.

I loathe Fcking Ttting Thomas the Winky Wanky Wank Engine with a loathing beyond reason. It is like Vogon poetry and if I am forced to read it I can almost feel my intestine trying to leap up to strangle my brain to put me out of my misery.
I remember hating the Mr Men and the Mr Misses or whatever their female equivalents are called when I was a child so I will not inflict them on my LO.
For some reason, the Very Hungry Caterpillar gets right on my tits too. Oi, Carle, NAAOOOOW! Caterpillars don't eat cupcakes, sausages and lollipops, you twonk.
Percy the Sodding Park Keeper.
Bloody Babar the King of the Bleeding Elephants.
And it's not really a children's book but I can't resist mentioning The Little Prince - why couldn't St Exupery have disappeared before he inflicted that pile of whimsical, cod-philosophical old underpants on the world?

But I love Beatrix Potter and am genuinely astonished that so many of you don't like her.

We've only had one Thomsas The Tank Engine Book and that strangely disappeared. The same sad fate awaited The Mr Men too.

DD2 is strangely entranced by Beatrix Potter. I like it because there is no flim flam about ickle wickle animals. It's nasty and dangerous out there - rabbits are eaten, baby animals are beaten and Tom Kitten comes damn close to being eaten alive by Samuel Whiskers in a roly-poly. Love it.

I hate hate hate the Rainbow Sodding Fairies too except that DD1 (just turned 6) is so inordinately proud of being able to read them herself she'll read whole chapters at bedtime and all reading at this age is a Good Thing.

Oh God, your DD is reading them herself at 6, I have 2 more years to go - pass the gin please

Guess How Much I Love You
because the big nut brown hare always has to get one-up on the little nut brown hare. And becauthe it maketh me want to thwow up.

Sorry, feetheart, my dd was 6.5 too before she read them to herself. But once she started there was no stopping her. She reads them at the rate of one a night now!

a walker books book called "my friend whale" all about a boy with a blue whale for a friend. they get on just fine for a while and then one night the whale doesn't turn up because hes been poisoned by the polluted sea/hunted/take your pick, its meant to be a charming fable all about man's relationship with the planet and the harm we're causing.

fabulous bedtime reading for a 6 year old.

My DD is seven and has moved on to slightly more sophisticated fairy stories (ie they make some attempt to vary the plot from one book to the next).
Stand by for:
Magic by moonlight
Fairy Dreams
My secret unicorn
Magic kitten/pony/puppy/gerbil etc
Barf, barf, barf....

Hate the Charlie and lola illustrations -ugly and badly drawn.

Thomas the Tedious tank engine -quite good if you see it as an ironic statement about a totalarian state.
Fat controller is big brother.
The engines are party members anxious to shop the least loyal.
Trucks are your basic prolaterite (sp)
Toad is possibly the most annoying character with his horribly deferencel attitude to the engines.

horrid Henry is awful

Sorry Feetheart. It's true. DD1 (just turned 6) still reads them to us not to herself, which in some ways is even more excruciating because you need to follow the text carefully and can't mentally drift off to consider whether you would rather have sex with Rupert Campbell Black or Andrew Marr (see threads passim).

More or less anything that has been taken straight from a TV series, Thomas, Postman Pat, Tractor Tom, or even worse those Ladybird books that have been taken straight from a Disney film, they are beyond yawnsome.

Actually I have just bought 'guess how much I love you' and I am wondering what it was all about KathyMCM?

I love the Beatrix Potter books, DS doesn't sadly.

We both like Jane Hissey (?) books about Jolly & Bramwell Bear. They are nice and the illustrations are fab.

You mean the inner meaning of Guess How Much.... or just what it's about on the surface UCM? (sorry, am being a bit thick tonight)

I have only flicked through it, but there is a lot of 'this much, that much'. I just envisioned DS whacking me in the face every time he opens his arms to say 'this much' I can't remember why I bought it tbh, I think I saw a recommendation somewhere.

Please don't tell me it's that deep, cos I just wont get it, I know I won't.

It's all right, don't think there is an inner meaning.
Little Nut Brown Hare says he loves Big NBH x amount (eg as high as I can jump) and BNBH says he loves LNBH as high as he can jump, and of course that's higher. Etc etc.

The pictures are very pretty and I suppose it's not badly written (says K grudgingly) but it's a bit soppy for my taste.

I dislike Guess How Much... because 'big' always trumps 'little'. (Just seen you've said much the same think Kathy - great minds )

The Mr Men books are v badly written and some of them have appalling messages (Mr Clever, Mr Nosey anyone?), but feel obliged to have them for ds somehow.

Some German children's books are the epitome of turgid direness.

thing

My kids love Dirty Bertie, well they would - he eats bogies, wees in the garden eats sweets from the floor, licks dogs and everything else you go to great lengths to teach your kids not to do. I HATE DIRTY BERTIE!

LOL I love Dirty Bertie.

We LOVE Horrid Henry. We started with the audio books which are fantastic for long journeys and we've all enjoyed them. He's just wonderfully naughty and Miranda Richardson's reading has really influenced the way we read them. To be honest, DS verges towards being Perfect Peter, so it's taken in a very kind of way. We read HH and the Mummy's Curse at bedtime the other night and DS was literally laughing out loud at PP's confusion of Mum saying "of course I'm your Mummy - let me wrap you up" Aaaaaagh!

I'd love to know why you all hate them so much.

I hate 'The lion king' and anything with princes and princesses in it.

I like reading Thomas

I also like Dr Suess or anything else in rhyme because you can read it very quickly and without even really concentrating

I hate those bloody Astrosaur books - they are so hard to read out loud because they are so badly written

I hate anything which I get bored reading and end up skipping words/pages if I can get away with it. That's the Mr Men then.

And Winnie the Pooh, which if you read the full version is so tedious and not comprehensible for little children IMO.

And I hate fairy tales, bizarrely, because of the invariably helpless female aspect of the plots.