# Children's books that irritated you, even as a child **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 17, 2005, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483 "2005-11-17T14:34:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2005, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/81 "2005-11-20T08:35:50Z")
> [@irishgirl](#): > > Oh, and the fact that “The Secret Mountain” is probably the most racist children’s book EVER, unless you count those two brothers who went on adventures to collect animals for zoos. Their take on Rwanda- tall, beautiful, civilised Tutsis, and the docile, backwards, pygmy Hutus who enjoyed serving their Tutsi masters still haunts me. If anyone knows about the books I mean (I think they had titles like “Artic Adventure”, “Amazon Adventure”"etc and there was a whole series) please let me know. Hal and Roger Hunt, from Willard Price’s “{Exotic Placename} Adventure” series: yeah, they were pretty cringeworthy - two clean-cut American teenagers go to savage places to collect animals and boss the subservient natives around. In the same vein, the **Curious George** series always struck a raw nerve, even as a kid: the Man In The Yellow Hat goes to Africa, captures a perfectly content little monkey, gives him a pipe to smoke {!}, and then takes him back to civilised America. Once there, when not volunteering George for dangerous trips into space or pimping him to movie studios, he abandons him to his own devices for lengthy periods, whereupon George wanders off and gets into scrapes - which usually involve people forcing him to work for free, then and punishing him when he makes mistakes. And the monkey _likes_ it. You could have fun picking the racial sub-text out of _that_ series. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2005, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/82 "2005-11-20T15:06:38Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > 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: RetroCrush did a good review of this book, which they call [The Sickest Kids Book Ever](http://www.retrocrush.com/archive/loveyou/default.htm). ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/83 "2005-11-21T01:46:09Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > I didn’t have those books at home but I did become familiar with them whenever I went to a doctor’s or dentist’s office. For years I was under the impression that when someone got his medical license, he was also given copies of the Uncle Arthur books. I still have several of Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories. Really mindbending stuff! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/84 "2005-11-21T02:28:50Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Hey, don’t be hatin’ Arthur S. Maxwell & the Seventh-Day Adventists! 😉 I have to say it…band name. > [@Sattua](#): > > I liked the Berenstein Bears books. The bear I never liked is Winnie the Pooh. I just never read any of the stories and never watched any of the Disney animated things… except for one segment in Disney’s Halloween Treat, which featured Pooh’s weird-ass acid trip. The elephants? Does anyone know what I’m talking about? beWARE… beWARE… beWARE… _Beware! Beware! Be a very wary bear! A heffalump or woozle is very confusle A heffalump or woozle’s very sly- Sly! Sly! Sly! They come in ones or twozles, but if they so choozles Before your eyes you’ll see them multiply- Ply! Ply! Ply!_ From the animated short _Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day_. Music by the incomparable Richard and Robert Sherman. (The three original Pooh shorts were taken directly from the A.A. Milne books, and hewed closely to the Milne mythology. Like in the books, Heffalumps and Woozles were only figments of Pooh’s imagination, but the recent film _Pooh’s Heffalump Movie_ has shown that Heffalumps are real, and friendly, not creepy. Eh.) ---
**Author:** ![MelCthefirst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@MelCthefirst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MelCthefirst)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/85 "2005-11-21T02:53:15Z")
Okay, may not be a popular opinion, but I didn’t enjoy Dr Seuss - most specifically: Green Eggs and Ham. Only now as an adult do I realise they were the source of my vivid, recurring nightmares, where I was on a train on a very rickety track which breaks and I fall into the sea and nearly drown. ---
**Author:** ![Khan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3ab097/32.png) [@Khan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khan)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/86 "2005-11-21T03:13:39Z")
Count me as a chucklehead. I especially liked the Bernstein Bear books. And even though I didn’t see anything wrong with the vast majority of the books I read, there were a few that pissed me off: [The Pain and the Great One](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0440409675/002-7847595-3668015?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance), for example. I had three older sisters, and they weren’t bitches like that girl was. Damn. [Freckle Juice](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0440428130/002-7847595-3668015?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance) was a load of ass too. I guess you could say I don’t like Judy Blume very much. ---
**Author:** ![carlotta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/87 "2005-11-21T03:29:17Z")
Since a few other posters cheated I’m going to also, and offer a book that I read only about a year ago **Harriet the Spy** This was one of the books I always meant to get to as a kid, it’s always front and center in libraries. It’s considered a classic of children’s literature. Several of my writer friends mentioned it as an important influence. So I finally read it. AHHHH! Harriet has to be one of the most unlikeable characters in all of children’s literature. She goes around writing mean things about everybody in her notebook. She never observes anything nice about anybody. She is cold, critical, unkind, vengeful, spoiled, self-centered and mean mean mean. When her friends finally find out how mean she is (they find the notebook) they are mean back and among her revenge plans (PLANS not fantasies) is to bite her best friend’s finger off. I hope the sequel was something like “Harriet the Psychotherapy Patient” ---
**Author:** ![Baine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Baine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baine)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/88 "2005-11-21T05:26:52Z")
The book [Frederick](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394826140/104-1877649-8664725?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance) always kind of bothered me. Frederick just seems like a lazy bum freeloading off the work of the other mice. He may have been able to provide art and poetry, but that won’t keep the other mice from starving during the winter. Surely Frederick could have been collecting and storing food while looking for his inspiration. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/89 "2005-11-21T06:45:32Z")
The Pippi Longstocking books. I think there were a few–I really disliked them. I think the idea of giving them to me was that it’s possible to achieve success among your peers even if you have freckles, red hair and big feet (I did not have big feet) but what I seem to have gotten from them is that happiness is assured when you have an unlimited supply of gold coins and a fascinating but absent parent who doesn’t care what you do. But I guess that was just me. I was always running into people who loved those books. I also didn’t really think much of Madeleine. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/90 "2005-11-21T06:51:50Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#): > > In the same vein, the **Curious George** series always struck a raw nerve, even as a kid: the Man In The Yellow Hat goes to Africa, captures a perfectly content little monkey, gives him a pipe to smoke {!}, and then takes him back to civilised America. Once there, when not volunteering George for dangerous trips into space or pimping him to movie studios, he abandons him to his own devices for lengthy periods, whereupon George wanders off and gets into scrapes - which usually involve people forcing him to work for free, then and punishing him when he makes mistakes. And the monkey _likes_ it. You could have fun picking the racial sub-text out of _that_ series. This one didn’t bother me as a kid but reading it to my kids (and of course they loved it and wanted to hear it every night–I had to hide it) it really, really bugged me. ---
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/91 "2005-11-21T07:25:30Z")
The Mary Poppins books. Julie Andrews she ain’t. In the books she’s a mean old shrew. I remember a couple of characters who broke off their own fingers and they turned into candy and the kids ate them. Also there’s a chapter in which little Michael finds a magic compass and gets attacked by a harpoon-wielding Eskimo and a stereotypical Red Indian. I remember being very grateful that my parents never hired a magical psychopath to take care of me and my sister. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/92 "2005-11-21T10:09:04Z")
Thank you **Case Sensitive**! I knew I wasn’t making that whole thing up. **NDP** , sadly these were actual, real German fairy stories for kids, and they were terrifying! Lots of people being burned at the stake, rolled down hills in spiked barrels or pulled apart by galloping horses as part of the “happy” ending. Thinking about it, I also hated “The Cat in The Hat” but that was only because my sister forced my poor mother to read it every night for 2 years, so I only ever got time for a chapter of my book. It’s actually quite a nice story. I have never seen the “I Love You for Always” but I can say right now that it’s not going to be on my children’s bookcase while I draw breath. It’s the most f\*cked up story. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/93 "2005-11-21T14:32:52Z")
> [@SparrowHawk](#): > > _The Peterkin Papers_. Hopefully, no one has ever even heard of them, as they have deservedly slipped into a forgotten abyss. Even worse than Amelia Bedelia, whom I also hated. Even as a child I was insulted to have stupidity held up as entertaining so I could feel superior to a pack of fictional lackwits. Bleh. Good heavens :eek: I had mercifully forgotten that book. Thanks for the reminder :mad: 😉 The memories are coming back now. Elizabeth Eliza. The piano that could only be played while sitting outside the window. Some lady from out of town who knew everything (i.e. had an IQ higher than a bag o’ rocks). I’m going to go bleach my brain now. Little Match Girl / Little Mermaid - aren’t those both Hans Christian Anderson tales? That guy was really messed up. Unlike that happy, chirpy movie starring Danny Kaye. Most of his stories were horribly depressing, not entertaining, and not even educational. I think they were supposed to have a “moral”. Feh. Anyone else ever read At The Back of the North Wind? I had sense enough to be depressed by that one as a child. Recently I reread it (it was available as a free e-book) and was even less favorably impressed. Impossibly sweet, good child, who (naturally) dies. Or not really, he’s “gone to the back of the North Wind”. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/94 "2005-11-21T14:42:24Z")
> [@Agrippina](#): > > RetroCrush did a good review of this book, which they call [The Sickest Kids Book Ever](http://www.retrocrush.com/archive/loveyou/default.htm). BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA 😃 I’m too old for this to have been available when I was a kid, but I’ve bought other Robert Munsch books for my offspring and love his stuff. Very funny, subversive stuff. I read the book in question though and _loathed_ it at first sight. Even w/o the creepiness factor, it’s just too effing smarmy. **Papa Zappa** hated it too. We fantasized about Mommy peering in her adult son’s room from outside the window, and learning more about his life than she had any business knowing. “Uh, Mom, let me introduce you to my special friend George”… ---
**Author:** ![Butterscotch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Butterscotch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Butterscotch)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/95 "2005-11-21T15:21:41Z")
> [@](#): > > > [@Shirley Ujest](#): > > > > **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. THANK OG! I think that is the most horrible book ever written. I have people :rolleyes: at me because apparently I “just don’t get it”. It is a nasty piece of literature and I agree wholeheartedly with Shirley Ujest. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/96 "2005-11-21T15:50:44Z")
As I was falling asleep last noc, _Charlotte’s Web_ popped into my head. What a selfish lout of a pig he is. Did he EVER say thank you to Charlotte? Did he ever do anything to justify her sacrifices for him? I loved that book as a child, but tried to read it to my kids and said, nope-not happening. I also nominate _Little Women_ --I read it to my older kids. I kept putting the book down and telling them “girls CAN do more than this; girls don’t have to only get married and have babies” etc. I got so enraged by the Victorian schmaltz and sexism that we barely finished it. Blech. Re Fairy Tales. IMS, the original Cinderella involves the stepsister’s cutting off their toes to try to fit the slipper. Nice, eh? I don’t mind the scary tales–and I don’t think most kids mind, either (kids can be fairly bloodthirsty)–it’s the pointlessness of some of the tales (see the German cow tale above) that bothers me. If ya gotta have violence etc–have it have a point, eh? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/97 "2005-11-21T15:53:53Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > I don’t mind the scary tales–and I don’t think most kids mind, either (kids can be fairly bloodthirsty)–it’s the pointlessness of some of the tales (see the German cow tale above) that bothers me. If ya gotta have violence etc–have it have a point, eh? Yes. There should be cash involved. Violence for money–it’s the American Way! 😛😃 ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/98 "2005-11-21T15:54:33Z")
Meant to add that I also only experienced the Bible Stories in my dentist office. Since I was un-churched as a child, I couldn’t figure out why the people wore these funky clothes. And they seemed so sad all the time. It seemed like nothing good happened to these people–I remember alot of sheep on men’s shoulders ( how dirty! how heavy) and women lugging water around. It was all very strange–because although they wore shawls etc, they had hair and makeup like Donna Reed. Very surreal. I also thought the book just came with the dentist office. Standard issue. I never put the book together with God or Jesus–it connected in my mind with teeth cleaning and “no cavities!”. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2005, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/99 "2005-11-22T07:05:13Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#): > > In the same vein, the **Curious George** series always struck a raw nerve, even as a kid: the Man In The Yellow Hat goes to Africa, captures a perfectly content little monkey, gives him a pipe to smoke {!}, and then takes him back to civilised America. Once there, when not volunteering George for dangerous trips into space or pimping him to movie studios, he abandons him to his own devices for lengthy periods, whereupon George wanders off and gets into scrapes - which usually involve people forcing him to work for free, then and punishing him when he makes mistakes. And the monkey _likes_ it. You may want to check the new **Curious George** stories they’re selling these days. The plots are very formulatic, but not as offensive: 1. George and TMWTYH go somewhere. 2. George wanders off. 3. George causes something to go wrong. 4. Panicky humans can’t fix the problem. 5. George inadvertently fixes the problem. 6. Humans thank George, MWTYH reclaims George, cheers all around. Almost makes me want to pick up one of the original CG books, just to get away from the formula… ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2005, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483/100 "2005-11-22T07:45:32Z")
> [@Mama Zappa](#): > > Little Match Girl / Little Mermaid - aren’t those both Hans Christian Anderson tales? That guy was really messed up. Unlike that happy, chirpy movie starring Danny Kaye. Most of his stories were horribly depressing, not entertaining, and not even educational. I think they were supposed to have a “moral”. Feh. One thing you should know about Hans Christian Anderson is that, in real life, he was very much a “melancholy Dane”. He suffered from periods of deep depression throughout his life and that certainly is reflected in the somber tone of much of his stories. Also, although I know this is ethnic stereotyping, Scandinavians are not known to be a “happy, chirpy” and zany lot. Maybe moroseness is just something in our genes. (I’m of half-Norwegian descent by the way.) > [@eleanorigby](#): > > Re Fairy Tales. IMS, the original Cinderella involves the stepsister’s cutting off their toes to try to fit the slipper. Nice, eh? > > I don’t mind the scary tales–and I don’t think most kids mind, either (kids can be fairly bloodthirsty)–it’s the pointlessness of some of the tales (see the German cow tale above) that bothers me. If ya gotta have violence etc–have it have a point, eh? I wouldn’t necessarily say the tale about the farmer trading his wife to the devil for a cow that dies shortly thereafter is pointless. Basically, if you deal with the devil, you’re going to get burned. Caveat emptor. As for the violence and scariness, you have to consider that these tales had their roots in the Middle Ages which was a violent and scary time in Europe. That period of history seems far removed from us now so we’re more easily shocked by the brutality depicted in these stories. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-books-that-irritated-you-even-as-a-child/331483.md?page=6)