Yep. “Theo LeSieg” was the pen name Ted Geisel used when he wrote books that were illustrated by other people. When he illustrated the book himself, he used the name “Dr. Seuss.” (Most of the former are now credited as being “by Dr. Seuss, writing as Theo LeSieg.”)
Good Night, Moon. The kid is in Med School now, but I still wince when I hear those words.
My Mom says she was tempted to burn my “Grover at the Farm” book. I don’t remember it at all, so I insist that I couldn’t have read it too often.
Babysitting for my friend’s little girl, I couldn’t get her to stop crying unless I played a song from her musical book (the kind where each page has a button that plays a different song) over and over and over and over. It killed the batteries, and I had to cannibalize the VCR remote to keep it going. That was two years ago now and I still get the song in my head sometimes. Damn song.
And yet, I want children. I know, I’m cracked.
The ones that didn’t scan…
There was the Monster’s Lunchbox. Horrible rhymes that didn’t. That’s the one that sticks out. But there were others that didn’t scan. A swift kick under the dresser…that’s all it takes.
We did Mr. Brown Can Moo and Goodnight Moon and lots of the others over and over - and if they are good I don’t mind.
I hope the posts keep coming.
I’m sending the link to this thread to my daughter. My theory is, if we get all these books, maybe the repeat reads will spread out among many of the books.
Thanks so much for all your inputs.
Oh, the outright *bad *ones disappear around here right quick. For some reason, my MIL keeps giving my daughter the most inane claptrap available, most of it heavily Christian themed.
There’s one bit of treacle about a boy mouse and a girl mouse who are friends and she shares her dolls (while he’s playing with with his trucks), and she “only says things that are nice and sweet.” Blergh. Another was a bit of just stupid prose pretending to be poetry that was a poor excuse for a holiday book - complete with spelling and grammar errors!
I used to freecycle 'em, but I decided that really no one’s child should have those sorts of things inflicted on them. They go in the trash like the trash they are now.
The irritating ones that are good books, I don’t throw out, but they have been known to be “lost” for a couple of weeks at a time.
My brother and I apparently drove our mother crazy with The Little Engine That Could.
The good thing about knowing two languages is that I can decide to interpret on the fly, so the third time I “read” to my daughter I actually have to engage my brain.
Then there are the books written in one language that I only read in the other – no two versions are the same!
That is not my cow!
I actually get flashbacks to this book. Whenever somebody says, “A cow goes moo,” I am compelled to recite the entire book. It’s like some sort of hideous, specific form of OCD. It’ll be stuck in my head for hours if I don’t recite it, just to get rid of it.
My little brother is twelve years younger than me and I, ever the doting big sister, loved to read to him when he was little. Until he became absolutely obsessed with that book and it was burned into my brain for the rest of my life. Also Green Eggs and Ham. After all these years, I can still recite that one from memory, too.
I do not like Green Eggs and Ham.
From time to time I dream that I’m a manatee, undulating underneath the sea.
Unshackled by chains of idle vanity, a modest manatee, that’s me.
My nephew has demanded this one so many times that hardly anyone needs the actual book anymore. Darned John Lithgow.
Sometimes I send “Fox in Socks” to the Island of Misfit Books (top of our clothes dryer) because it makes me want to cry.
For a while, we had to read my daughter some of the original Curious George books every single night (CG, CH Gets A Job, CG Goes to the Hospital), but there was no way that book could get lost because it’s very large (Hardcover book containing 6 separate stories). I had to do some editing of the content while I read, too, because I don’t like telling DD that “George was so ashamed that he wished he were dead” or talking about how he and the man with the yellow hat (please, can’t we just call him ‘Fred’? ‘The man with the yellow hat’ is too many syllables!)smoked a pipe after dinner.
The other night, my husband was in charge of the bedtime reading. He took a few of the new books we had gotten for Christmas but hadn’t gotten around to reading yet into our daughter’s room. Later on, he mentioned to me that Babar is just a horrible story, and did I know that a hunter kills Babar’s mother on the second page of the book? In his effort to edit while reading, he just said that the hunter “knocked Babar’s mother out.” I hardly think that was a comfort, but I guess it is better.
But that’s not an over-reading story. This is: Thomas’ ABC. My son will get to the last page and say, “The End. Again! Again!”
I was driving them to a party last weekend and my son asked me where we were going. I said to a party and he mumbled, “Blabity blah blah Thomas’ ABC!” Now, I’ve read that book approximately 5.782 times in the 3 weeks since we bought it, and there’s no party in it. Somehow, though, all roads lead to Thomas with him.
Molly, is that you? Naw, couldn’t be my baby girl…your brother never loved it as much as you did! Ten times a night some nights…oh, my!
But what’s more mind-boggling is that I never, ever thought of hiding it! What was wrong with me? I mean, I thoroughly believe in deceiving children to attain a noble end (like parental sanity) but the thought of hiding that damn book never crossed my mind! I blame the sleep-deprivation.
When I mention her obsession with this book to my daughter now, at age 24, she is baffled. She has no idea what she liked that one so much, and in fact she barely remembers it, but can recite other books we read much, much less.
I read the title to this thread in a completely different way and all I could think of was that we kept Shel Silverstein’s Different Dances in the library instead of in the great room on the kids’ shelves.
My dad tells this same story, about me.
I thinned the herd of childrens’ books at my house this weekend, and although my son is ten now, he still wouldn’t let me dispose of Bartholomew’s Dream, a book he made me heartily sick of when he was younger. Admittedly, the pictures are nice.
I have to wait for **grandkids ** to indulge little ones in that Pratchetty goodness.
The Little Yellow Digger by Betty & Alan Gilderdale had to vanish
In the next door garden they were digging out a drain
when the weather turned quite nasty, and it poured and poured with rain
the garden got so muddy that the little digger stuck…
It is seared into my brain, along with Hairy Maclary (from Donaldsons Dairy) by Lynley Dodd.
Si
Me too, Si, but I think you’ll agree it was worth the wait!!
[QUOTE=lorene]
Sometimes I send “Fox in Socks” to the Island of Misfit Books (top of our clothes dryer) because it makes me want to cry.
[QUOTE]
The missus has banished Fox in Socks. She HATES reading it, but I really enjoy reading it - so she’d stash it somewhere, then I’d find it - “Hey, Pumpkin! Look what Daddy found!” (Yay!), and SmithWife would get very angry with me. I’d say it’s been “missing” for 6 months now, and I’ve looked all over. 
I’ve also got a collection of traditional Norwegian Fairy Tales that my wife despises - tales of Trolls eating misbehaving or glutunous children and so forth. Truely, truely bizarre. I attribute my twisted outlook on life in large part to these tales.