Children's books that irritated you, even as a child

Cafe Society
1

Let’s make a list. Starting with the Berenstain Bears, or however the heck you spell that. Even as a kid I could tell that the picture books were nothing more than thinly-veiled conservative parenting guides and the novels were much the same, but aimed directly at indoctrinating the kids this time. And the characters? Puh-leeze. Stan and Jan obviously haven’t talked to any real kids within the last 5 decades. Or at all. Oh and I think the last sentence (or at least one of the last sentences) of the Drug-Free Zone, an incredibly unbelievable cheeseball about the fight against generic unnamed “drugs” was Sister Bear saying something like “You know, I think the only TRUE drug-free zone is in your HEART.” AWWWWWW. Get me the shotgun.

Okay. Your turn :slight_smile:

2

Oh, and another thing: THEY DON’T LOOK LIKE BEARS. To me they look remarkably similar to whole peeled chestnuts. I suspect others don’t feel this way but either way they don’t look anything like BEARS. Just like Arthur looks nothing like an aardvark but hey, at least Arthur didn’t suck balls.

3

The Borrowers irritated the holy living shit out of me as a kid. Pod et. al. were thieves, plain and simple. They weren’t cute or whimsical. I didn’t think it would be cool to have little people like them living in my house. Too bad they weren’t savaged by a terrier or a ferret.

4

The Carrot Seed.

Geez, a litle boy plants a carrot seed, and his parents and everybody else tell him from the get-go, “It won’t come up”. To his credit, the little boy doesn’t give up in the face of opposition. But does that opposition have to be his parents? Couldn’t they just humor him? How the hell did the know it wouldn’t come up? Well, they didn’t, did they?

5

I’ll admit the Berenstain Bears creeped me out, though I never came across them until I was grown up. But that was because I first came across Jan and Stan Berenstein because they wrote a “how to spice up your marriage” book (probably one of these) that my parents had around the house. It was positively creepy to see the Bears, since I remembered an image of mother bear – in human form – removing her bra in front of her husband.

I didn’t much care for Winnie the Pooh as a kid, but once I got older, I appreciated it a lot; they are great books, but just not for kids.

6

Yeah, I didn’t like the Berenstein Bears either. Their eyes and paws sort of creeped me out.

7

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
I Was Kissed by a Seal at the Zoo

Boring. Pointless. Hard to read. And totally devoid of vert porcine products.

8

When I was in seventh grade (so I was 11?) we had to do a book report. The teacher, Sister Denice, made a list of books for the class to choose from for this assignment. There were 26 kids in the class and 26 books on the list.

I was sick the day everyone went down to the library to choose their book. So the next day I came back there was one book left.

War and Peace

Yep, I was assigned to read War and Peace when I was in 7th grade. Now I know there are going be some Dopers that read it fifth grade and then did an interpretive dance to explain the major themes of the book. But I just slogged about half way through the book and surrendered. The teacher passed me on the essay as she realized that it was a bit tough.

Stupid Tolstoy.

9

Think you got anything out of it?

-FrL-

10

I’m pretty sure that’s when I became a communist.

11

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein/stienwhatever
This book is evil pure and simple.

It is the story of a self absorbed little boy that takes and takes and takes x100000 from the tree ( mom) and the tree( mom) is a spineless codependant who can’t say no and is left with nothing of her former self by the end of the book because her son has whittled her down to nothing.

I hate this book and cannot even read Shel Silverstein’s other works because of it.

12

that sounds really hot.

13

Hello Moon

It’s the lamest book ever.
And as a kid, I was shocked by the kid drawing with his purple crayon on the wall.
He was clearly a dope, and I didn’t want to follow his story.

14

I totally agree. I hated it then and still hate it. A bad bad book.

15

Add me to the list of haters of this book. And while you’re at it, sign me up for hating “The Rainbow Fish” as well, pretty much for the same reason. (“You’ve got something that makes you special? Well, that’s bad! You must give up what makes you special so you can be just like everybody else! Conform or be cast out*!” Feh.)

*with apologies to Rush…

16

Me too.

I’ll Love You Forever, I’ll Love Your For Ever --a horrible horrible book about a mother who cannot recognize boundaries when it comes to her son.

It’s my MIL’s favorite book.
:rolleyes:

17

I never read this as a child, but I thought it deserved inclusion in this thread just because of the pure annoyance factor.

I think it was called The Little Musician, or something like that. My ex gave it to me for Christmas because, well, I’m a musician. She got it from a used bookstore, and it was an antique and first edition, being something like 70 years old and in very good condition. It had a delightful cover, and I cherished it.

One day I decided to actually open it up and read what I thought was going to be a delightful and very readable children’s story. Oh, how wrong I was. Let me paraphrase for you:

Once upon a time there was a little musician from Padua. One morning the little musician walked up to her mother and said, “Mama, is God great?”

The mother said, “Yes, little musician daughter, God is great. Praise God in the highest.”

Then the little musician went outside and saw a fisherman and said , “Signor fisherman, God is great, isn’t he?”

The fisherman said, “Yes, little musician girl, God is great. Praise God in the highest.”

Then the little musician walked up to a baker and said, “Signor baker, God is great, isn’t he?”

The baker said, “Yes, little musician girl, God is great. Praise God in the highest.”

That was the entire plot. It went on for 40 pages. And each paragraph was more annoying than the last. Now I know it’s a crime to destroy literature, but…

18

My mother gave that book to me. When I was an adult! It was so embarassing. :o

19

:eek: I tried to read this last year, and I wasn’t able to. And I’m 29, by the way.

Add me to the list that hates The Giving Tree.

20

Has anyone else ever read The Big Ugly Monster and the Little Stone Rabbit? I think the moral of it is “if you’re ugly and alone you should die and the world will be happier.”.

Gahh.