# Which highly praised children’s books leave you cold? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 29, 2011, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396 "2011-03-29T17:08:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/1 "2011-03-29T17:08:30Z")
I’ll probably get pitted for this, but I never liked “Where the Wild Things Are” or “The Little Prince”. I found them both just ok, nothing special [tho I like Sendak’s illustration style], both as a child and later on as an adult. What award winning or otherwise highly praised book for the younger readers left you baffled as to its praise? ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/2 "2011-03-29T17:18:00Z")
Don’t get me started on “The Giving Tree.” Just don’t. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/3 "2011-03-29T17:26:00Z")
Anything by Richard Scarry. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/4 "2011-03-29T17:27:23Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Don’t get me started on “The Giving Tree.” Just don’t. Agreed. I call it “The Most Selfish Little Boy Ever”. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/5 "2011-03-29T17:30:44Z")
I only tried to read it once (and that was sometime in childhood), but I could not get interested in “The Wind in the Willows.” ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/6 "2011-03-29T18:27:28Z")
The Chronicles of Narnia. I read the first one as a kid, and a couple of the others as an adult because I was trying to see if I’d like them any better, but I just don’t get the appeal. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/7 "2011-03-29T18:28:45Z")
Bridge to Terabithia, ugh. Such a contrived story! ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/8 "2011-03-29T18:39:07Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Don’t get me started on “The Giving Tree.” Just don’t. Would you like to get started on “The Giving Tree”? Yes, “The Giving Tree” is about a horribly selfish little boy who uses and destroys a horrible co-dependent tree that allows itself to be used and destroyed. That doesn’t make it a bad book. Decades later people talk about how the book made them so angry and upset. Shel Silverstein made you feel that way on purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/9 "2011-03-29T18:46:12Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Would you like to get started on “The Giving Tree”? > > Yes, “The Giving Tree” is about a horribly selfish little boy who uses and destroys a horrible co-dependent tree that allows itself to be used and destroyed. > > That doesn’t make it a bad book. Decades later people talk about how the book made them so angry and upset. Shel Silverstein made you feel that way on purpose. I rarely use this, but :rolleyes:. The Op didn’t ask what books were bad. Not even what books we thought of as “bad”, but what books left us cold. And DrFidelius told us his. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/10 "2011-03-29T18:51:18Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > The Chronicles of Narnia. I read the first one as a kid, and a couple of the others as an adult because I was trying to see if I’d like them any better, but I just don’t get the appeal. This. I couldn’t even get through the first one. It just leaves me cold. On the other hand, I was never interested in the Laura Ingalls Wilder “Little House” books when I was a kid. It was pleasant enough to have the teacher read them to the class, but when I tried to read one or more of them on my own, they were boring. But as an adult, I find them fascinating. I guess that as a child, I just didn’t appreciate the way that they depicted an older lifestyle, and the way that the people made do with so little at the time. I know I wasn’t able to appreciate things like putting in a whole season’s planting for a family, and then having to pack up and move (because Pa Ingalls had settled illegally). ---
**Author:** ![Carmady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f04885/32.png) [@Carmady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carmady)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/11 "2011-03-29T18:57:48Z")
Watership Down. To be fair, I read it as an adult, so it is possible (though I consider it unlikely) that I would have enjoyed it as a kid. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/12 "2011-03-29T19:02:04Z")
I tried to read Wind in the Willows as a kid & was totally bored; as an adult I was enchanted. Little House books bored me as a kid & I hated the tv series with such a passion I didn’t try them as an adult, though I hear I should try. Lord of the Rings filled me up so much I had no space or time for Narnia, as a kid or adult. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/13 "2011-03-29T19:03:10Z")
Anything by Eric Carle. My mom says I loved _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_ when I was a kid, but I think she is making this up (she has a famously poor memory where our childhoods are concerned). The pictures are crap, the stories are crap, and they don’t even make any sense. I don’t understand why this guy is still in print, much less well-regarded. Also, along the same lines, Goodnight Moon is pretty creepy. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/14 "2011-03-29T19:15:02Z")
I’m also one who never quite got into Narnia, either. (I do love both “The Little Prince” and “The Giving Tree,” though, for their sadness and ambiguity.) ---
**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:** [March 29, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/15 "2011-03-29T19:16:54Z")
To\*\* Lynn\*\* and **Porpentine** : Which book of the Chronicles of Narnia are you calling the “first one”? _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_, or _The Magician’s Nephew_? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/16 "2011-03-29T19:18:00Z")
Interesting–I think **Where the Wild Things Are** captures a certain weird, savage element of childhood better than anything else I’ve ever encountered. It’s a damn near perfect prose poem, with pictures. I read it to my students a couple of times during the year (for example, during our unit on the Hero’s Journey as a mythic structure), and it’s hard not to get choked up at the power of his writing. I also think the Giving Tree is an amazing book, **because** the little boy is such a flawed character. I read it as a cautionary tale, not as a happy story; I believe it’s positively soaking in dramatic irony. But I know not everyone has this reading. As for books I don’t like, Ramona the Great is probably at the top of my list. The new Henry and Mudge books are pretty insipid as well. I know it’s on purpose, but for pity’s sake, I want excitement and adventure in my stories, not quiet little anecdotes about how a friendly dog slobbered on a little boy. ---
**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:** [March 29, 2011, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/17 "2011-03-29T19:22:22Z")
I didn’t read Where the Red Fern Grows until I was an adult, but I’d never have dug that ending anyway. I like animals, but rarely books about animals. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/18 "2011-03-29T19:28:10Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > To\*\* Lynn\*\* and **Porpentine** : Which book of the Chronicles of Narnia are you calling the “first one”? _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_, or _The Magician’s Nephew_? _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_, which is the one we were assigned to read in school. I think _The Magician’s Nephew_ may have been one of the ones I tried as a college student, but I’m not sure. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/19 "2011-03-29T19:31:17Z")
Most of the “classics”, actually. The Little Prince (didn’t learn to appreciate this one until high school, when we had to read it in French) Anything Winnie the Pooh (although as an adult I quite like them) Good Night Moon The Runaway Bunny Where the Wild Things Are The Tale of Peter Rabbit And for older kids: Gulliver’s Travels The Swiss Family Robinson 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Treasure Island Kidnapped The Jungle Book Man, now I’ve put myself to sleep just listing them. ETA: I can’t add The Giving Tree because it didn’t “leave me cold”. It left me hot, steaming boiling MAD! ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2011, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/20 "2011-03-29T19:41:42Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_, which is the one we were assigned to read in school. I think _The Magician’s Nephew_ may have been one of the ones I tried as a college student, but I’m not sure. Lion Witch and Wardrobe for me too. I keep reading people praising this series…but I think that it’s just one more thing where my tastes and everyone else’s are going to diverge. The odd thing is, as an adult, I LIKE a lot of fiction that’s written for kids. But there are some stories that have left me cold, both as a kid and as an adult. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396.md?page=2)