The big tall handsome man in the spiffy uniform and hat brought George over from Africa. In chains. In a cage. On a big ship.
George was very useful to the man at first, but once in a while he was just a little too, well, Curious…
Well, most of the core message is actually pretty valid - cut your fingernails, don’t play with fire, don’t rock your chair, don’t mistreat cats, don’t mock someone because they have a different skin color, don’t look to the sky while walking. It’s just not conveyed in a very PC, 21st century way.
I too was terrified by Struwwelpeter as a child. I don’t actually remember reading it, or having it read to me, but there was a copy (English translation, I guess) in my toy cupboard (at the head of my bed) and I can remember being freaked out by the cover picture, and stowing it so I did not have to see it when I went looking for other toys.
I hate reading Thomas the Shitty Attitude Train and his Proletariat Brothers to the Dudeling.
They’re assholes, the lot of them. Not happy, fun little scamps that go through life, but a pack of freerange shitheads. And somehow while other stories do make good on the ‘work and helping is good’ message, these just come across as a reflection of a class-based society sticking to their roles.
I picked up the collected original stories thinking they would be better, but they’re even worse than the vapid cartoons. Fuck you, Sir Top-em-Hat, fuck you with the Duke’s severed penis.
Another story that gets us–Jack and the Beanstalk. Dudeling is already cursed to be the weird kid, but we have him approaching the story with Jack as the bad guy. Sneakthief climbs into an innocent giant’s house, steals his property, and murders his victim. Little pissant.
We try and stick more to the Seuss, FlyGuy, Frog n’ Toad, etc. (and decaf)
I used to have a book of Baba Yaga stories…the one I’m thinking of was about a house in the forest with three inhabitants; a young man, and (I think) a dog and a crow. The crow may have been a spoon. I’m not sure.
Anyway, these three friends all had their particular chores to do. One hunted for dinner, one fetched water from the well, and the last - I’m not sure, I think he chopped wood, or went into town, or something. And they’d lived happily this way for a long time.
Once day they were getting a little bored always doing the same chores, so they decided to swap them around, and each took over one of the other’s chores. Long story short, it was a bad idea and everyone died.
The moral seemed to be “stick to what you’re good at”.
Does anyone remember the title of this story? I’d like to read it again and see how well it holds up to my memory.
Hillaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales also contain some pretty weird messages to give to children, although in fact they are really parodies of the genre, and quite funny from an adult perspective. (I particularly recommend Lord Lundy, part two.)
As a kid, I did not much care for the Cautionary Tales, but, although I did not understand a lot of the jokes, I loved Belloc’s The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts and More Beasts for Worse Children (I had them in a single volume). I think I can still recite The Yak* and The Hippopotamus by heart.
*Hmm. I think there is a transcription error in the version of The Yak, available at that link. It should be “nursery pet”. It does not scan otherwise. I wonder if there is a way to tell them.
Awww…I like that one. And it’s better than some of her other books, like the utterly random My World or, well, this creepy book.
Similar to the book in the OP, I always thought Frederick about the poetic mouse was a bit “off”. He sat around all summer so he could tell stories during the winter. What - he couldn’t have done *any *work while he did that? Bloody poets…
In a similar vein with JohnnyMac’s story, my youngest daughter loves a particular book about princesses and often checks it out from the library. There are three princess who each have a favorite hobby. One builds things, one gardens, and one bakes. They decide to hold a party, but one is tired of always doing the same thing for parties. The girls switch and the usual disasters occur (but no one dies.) They go back to doing the one thing they are good at and all is right with their world.
I call this the Myth of THE Talent. It’s a very common theme in children’s literature and media. The idea that everyone has exactly one talent, one thing you’re good at is so pervasive that a huge number of children’s television shows have at least one episode with this Myth as the theme. This is the Myth: 1. we all have one thing we are good at. 2. It’s only one thing. 3. You have to “find” you’re talent, never develop it. 4. You will know when you have found it because you will be suddenly better at it than everyone else you know. 5. If you get tired of that one thing, you’re stuck because (back to number 1) you only have one Talent and you’ll suck at everything else.
It’s a sucky, horrible thing to teach our kids. It’s insidious and soul crushing. And it needs to be eliminated from our society.
And the Man in the Yellow Hat loved George almost as if he were his own son. Almost.
Holy schniekies, how did I ever miss the implications of that?!
(Come to think of it, George is brown, too. It gets worse and worse…)
I just read Peter Pan for the first time. Forget the cringeworthy racism, the misogyny in the book is terrible. Two examples:
- Wendy is on an adventure in Neverland, too. The boys all get to be cutthroats and killers, sure. Wendy? Her adventure is to be a mother, darning socks for the boys all day long and then cooking them dinner at night. Seriously, this is explicitly what her adventure is, for weeks on end.
- About 2/3 of the way through the book, the omniscient narrator goes on a tear about how much he hates mothers, and how Ms. Darling is despicable because of her love for her children or something. Then he starts apologizing and saying how much he loves her, and then he hates her again. It’s profoundly weird.
And then there’s the whole ball-o-neuroses called Tinkerbell, but I won’t even go there.
For those who really want to experience Struwwelpeter
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12116/12116-h/12116-h.htm
I also had the tales of Baba Yaga, but few things can compare to the actual Grimm Fairy Tales. I’m still trying to figure out what the actual plotline was in Snow White and Rose Red.
Most of us who think we know them haev only seen the Disneyfied versions, which are bad enough. . . Grimms' Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm - Free Ebook
I do, from my childhood, so it must date back to the 50’s, or perhaps the 60’s if I’m recalling a story from my younger cousins’ stuff. No recollection of the title though.
I did have a book as a youngster called “Socks” about a black kitten who had white paws, and was made fun of as a result. After being ostracized by other felines, Socks eventually discovered a bottle of black ink, dipped his paws into it, and was proudly just like everyone else. Creepy.
Oh, yeah. Curious George. He’s my daughter’s current favorite but we don’t have the original book. My issue with the books is usually that the man with the yellow hat never learns his lesson. Dude, you let your monkey run amok constantly. Aren’t you afraid he’s going to be hit by a car or something?
I also am intrigued by the man with the yellow hat’s lady friends. In one of the stories I read to my daughter, he and George are at the train station on their way out to the country for a weekend with their friend, Mrs. Needleman. They, of course, disappear and George wreaks havoc. Mrs. Needleman looks older than the man with the yellow hat, and rich. So what’s their relationship? Is he a gigolo? The guy can’t control his monkey…wears a “yellow hat”…hmmmm.
And this, my friends, is what happens when you read too much Curious George.
That tears it. I’ve meant to read the original Peter Pan for a long time, and now I’m finally going to do it!
I shoot the hippopotamus with bullets made of platinum
For if I use the leaden ones, his hide is sure to flatten 'em.
Guess How Much I love You. Parental one-up-manship. Always bugged me. Loved In the Night Kitchen, though…
Were those flowers buttercups? If so, I vaguely remember it too.
You want a children’s book with a gigolo, do you?
Read the very first Babar story. It’s not even subtle. 
Babar the elephant goes to the Big City. He has no money and no clothes. Thank goodness he meets the “Old Lady”! She lets him sleep at her house, buys him nice clothes … and of course, a fancy car! Because ladies are kind to strangers like that.
Where would Babar be, if he didn’t have a great, big, thick … trunk? 
…
As for Curious George, quite aside from the ooginess induced by the Man in the Yellow Hat capturing his best friend, George does stuff as a ‘substitute child’ that would never pass muster today … I’m thinking of one story in particular in which George is riding his bike and falls off. He’s sad. A truck pulls up to him with two men in it. They invite him to get in and go see the circus. So naturally, George gets in the truck and goes with the two nice men.
I don’t think there is a parent alive these days who would not cringe at that …
I reread my post, and it really comes across like I don’t like Peter Pan. Far from it: the book is awesome (I got to read the version annotated by Maria Tatar this summer, accompanied with lectures and seminars by Dr. Tatar herself /stealthbrag). It’s beautifully written, full of whimsy. And Peter himself is an archetype, so powerfully Himself that it’s a wonder he doesn’t figure in ancient mythological systems. Not quite Puck, not quite Pan, but not remotely human: he’s a charming monster with no long-term memory and only the barest understanding of compassion or empathy. Definitely read it–it’s a real treat, racism and misogyny and all.