# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/61 "2011-03-31T02:23:02Z")
I got mighty tired of Dr. Seuss some years ago, we had every single book and while I’m glad my kid enjoyed them so much, I got all Seussed out. The Wind In The Willows is much, much more enjoyable to read as an adult, I think to a young present day American kid, it would just bore him and it would just fly right over his head. (Winnie the Pooh, OTOH, brought on fits of absolutely hysterical laughter from the get-go! :)) And…Watership Down is in no way a children’s book. ---
**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 31, 2011, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/62 "2011-03-31T04:08:39Z")
I just realized I should have added “The Cat in the Hat” to my original post. As a child, that was one of the few Seuss books I remember disliking. Loved the Oobleck book by Seuss & many others tho. signed, Well he’s back (Philistine Golden Compass Hater) ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/63 "2011-03-31T05:05:46Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Does Rowling get accolades for her actual writing? I think she mostly gets accolades for concept, and of course press for her popularity. She draws on her career as a teacher to write perceptively about the hopes and fears of early teen characters. I’ve seen accolades for this. ---
**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 31, 2011, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/64 "2011-03-31T07:44:40Z")
> [@kath94](#): > > Me, too! When I was the “target” age for these books, I didn’t have the focus to read ANY book with real chapters and few pictures. I guess that’s why I always bought the joke books during the Scholastic Book Drives. :rolleyes: Anyway, recently a used book store had a going-out-of-business sale & I bought the whole series. I’m working my way through, and they’re fascinating! I had the focus to read books without pictures, actually. What I lacked was the life experience and the empathy for what the characters were going through. Even in the 60s, it was hard for me to imagine getting excited about a Christmas in which every child was delighted to get a stick of candy and new mittens. Laura received a new rag doll as well, because she was the youngest girl and her previous doll was a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief. I enjoyed a lot of books at that age (I’ve always enjoyed books) but until I could put the setting into the proper context, I didn’t really enjoy the Little House books. ---
**Author:** ![manx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@manx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manx)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/65 "2011-03-31T13:08:22Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > My teacher read us a book like Watership Down but it was badgers. Totally hated it, but I always hated the ‘let’s use animals to get children to feel empathy’ thing. Don’t read me a story about farmers committing badger genocide, if I’m old enough for that, I’m old enough for a story with human genocide. I know that book - _The Cold Moons_ by Aaron Clemment. I loved it as a kid and read it over and over again. But I was a melodramatic girl who liked books about Brave Animals Fleeing Cruel Humans. Had dozens of variations of the same thing. I’ve seen it in second hand bookshops more than once, but haven’t been able to pick it up - I have a feeling that it’s not actually a masterpiece but is actually preachy and overwritten. **Gyrate** , do you work where I work? One of my colleagues caught scarlett fever a couple of months ago, and most people’s reaction was surprise that it still existed. I could never get into Anne of Green Gables or Little House books, either. And I loved the Famous Five but could never get into Enid Blyton’s other series. My brothers had Asterix books out from the local library in constant rotation, but I didn’t get the appeal. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/66 "2011-03-31T13:37:40Z")
> [@manx](#): > > **Gyrate** , do you work where I work? One of my colleagues caught scarlett fever a couple of months ago, and most people’s reaction was surprise that it still existed. Canary Wharf. I was in a bookstore the other day and noticed that the teen section had a new category called “Dark Romance”. No points for guessing which books belong there. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/67 "2011-03-31T21:11:12Z")
I am told I didn’t much like Where the Wild Things Are as a child. (I don’t remember one way or the other.) Both my kids enjoyed it, though–my son in particular loved it. The Little Prince, I _did_ like as a kid. The hat/elephant swallowed by a python was particularly intriguing to me, I recall. But I never read it again until a couple of years ago, when my reaction was different. “Left me cold” is exactly right. It’s hard for me to see why it appealed to me. The Secret Garden. And The Little Princess. Frances Hodgson Burnett–sigh. My dad loved to read books aloud to us when I was a kid, and he did extensive on-the-fly editing when he dug out the Wind in the Willows. The storyline does get lost in the poetic descriptions. The more exciting parts are quite good, though. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/68 "2011-03-31T22:10:43Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > Oh, I dunno, my three-year-old has asked for **Where the Wild Things Are** every night at bedtime for two weeks now. Then again, she also asks for “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight” for her bedtime song, so maybe I just have an odd one. > > **Goodnight Moon** wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the cheat. “Goodnight comb, and goodnight brush / Goodnight nobody, goodnight mush.” “Goodnight nobody”? Really? You need to stretch the line out to make the rhyme, so you just throw in a “goodnight nobody” for no good reason? That’s a cheat. Heh, I liked the “goodnight nobody”, because it introduces the concept of paradox (if there is nobody, who are you saying goodnight to?) to the little ones - all in a couple of words. I thought that was clever. Edit: though some may like this version better. [http://goodnightdune.com/](http://goodnightdune.com/) ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/69 "2011-04-01T04:25:05Z")
The Little House books left me cold, as I went west after reading them and I got cought in a couple blizzards. But seriously, Alice In Wonderland didn’t go over well. I think I wondered what drugs the author had taken, and this was before I got into the experimentation phase of life. Velveteen Rabbit? Big whoop. The kid survives and the bunny gets made, so it’s a happy ending, and yes I have been through a scarlet fever scare. It resulted in an argument with my mother, who was mad that I didn’t inform her that i was possibly spreading a lethal illness. Later I did, but that’s another story. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/70 "2011-04-01T07:52:21Z")
Oh gosh. Well there’s the question of what books we never got into in the first place, and which we liked as kids but give us pause as adults. Then there’s the issue of it’d be nice to have a list to work off of. And… Anyway. I’m a kid at heart, so I still love most of the kids books I can remember. For convenience, I’ll list all I can think of: The Ships Cat Where the Wild Things Are Giving Tree Missing Piece, etc by Shel Purple Crayon Rainbow Goblins Remember the Night Rainbow The first two remain particularly pristine in my memory because I associate them with my first cat, who looked like the ship’s cat and was named after Max king of the wild things. I grew up before Goodnight Moon and never got it’s appeal. I like the Dune parody though. Now as an adult I look on The Giving Tree from a much more dubious outlook. :dubious: In addition to that, my friend Brian likes to tease my other friend Oz by taking books from his childhood and reading them in such a way as they now seem naughty. The Giving Tree is especially prone to this technique. OTOH, The Missing Piece while it seems like a codependent manifesto, is completely saved by it’s sequel. > [@Lemur866](#): > > Shel Silverstein made you feel that way on purpose. Well yeah but… That sidesteps the problem. Shel works on several levels. The innocent level is all sweet and the adult level is all dubious. I guess ultimately it’s good - kids feel secure and adults are forced to think for themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/71 "2011-04-01T10:54:49Z")
When my daughter was a baby she got the book “Love You Forever” as a gift. People just love that book, for some reason that completely escapes me, but I find it really, really creepy. Breaking into your adult kid’s house at night to rock them as they sleep is…I don’t even know what that is. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/72 "2011-04-01T11:51:09Z")
Princhester writes: \> She draws on her career as a teacher to write perceptively about the hopes \> and fears of early teen characters. What career as a teacher? She didn’t teach that long, and most of her students were adults, as far as I can determine: > **[J. K. Rowling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling)** > > Joanne Rowling CH OBE FRSL (/ˈroʊlɪŋ/ "rolling"; born 31 July 1965), best known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote Harry Potter, a seven-volume children's fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600 million copies, been translated into 84 languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crim... ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/73 "2011-04-01T13:33:59Z")
It took me until I was a teenager to like _A Wrinkle In Time_. It’s the only book in my elementary school library that I actually returned without finishing. Oh, and the only reason I ever liked “Goodnight, Moon” was because it was 100% predictable. I could “read” it by knowing what the pictures were. This is the first time I’ve ever thought about it having anything to do with childlike wonder. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/74 "2011-04-01T14:04:30Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Princhester writes: > > \> She draws on her career as a teacher to write perceptively about the hopes > \> and fears of early teen characters. > > What career as a teacher? She didn’t teach that long, and most of her students were adults, as far as I can determine: > > [J. K. Rowling - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling) Hmm. Sorry, must have misremembered. Anyway, she has still received accolades for writing perceptively about hopes and fears of early teen characters. Unless I’m misremembering that too. ---
**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:** [April 1, 2011, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/75 "2011-04-01T15:10:19Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Hmm. Sorry, must have misremembered. Anyway, she has still received accolades for writing perceptively about hopes and fears of early teen characters. Unless I’m misremembering that too. Whatever she did, it left me cold: I did not find her characters as compelling as other YA characters in other YA fiction. As for **Love You Forever** , that book didn’t leave me cold, it gave me the serious creeps. The image of the old lady crawling across the floor of her unsuspecting adult son after stealthily breaking into his house through a window is hilariously horrible. ---
**Author:** ![Elret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Elret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elret)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/76 "2011-04-01T17:38:37Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > I grew up before Goodnight Moon and never got it’s appeal. I like the Dune parody though. Not trying to be pedantic, just confused… Goodnight Moon was published about 20 years before The Giving Tree, which you read as a child? Or am I misreading that? ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/77 "2011-04-01T17:59:56Z")
> [@Elret](#): > > Not trying to be pedantic, just confused… Goodnight Moon was published about 20 years before The Giving Tree, which you read as a child? Or am I misreading that? I didn’t research publishing dates. When I was a kid (born 74 Long Island) Shel books were well known and popular. Not until college had I heard of GM. But when I did hear of it then it seemed like a lot of people were talking about it suddenly so I assumed it had been recently published or at least recently popular. So I guess revise that to “I grew up before being aware of GM”. ---
**Author:** ![Elret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Elret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elret)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/78 "2011-04-01T18:58:03Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > I didn’t research publishing dates. When I was a kid (born 74 Long Island) Shel books were well known and popular. Not until college had I heard of GM. But when I did hear of it then it seemed like a lot of people were talking about it suddenly so I assumed it had been recently published or at least recently popular. > > So I guess revise that to “I grew up before being aware of GM”. Ah, I see! Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend, just was confused whether you meant you read Giving Tree as a parent or a kid. I get it now 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/79 "2011-04-01T19:14:06Z")
> [@Elret](#): > > Ah, I see! Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend, just was confused whether you meant you read Giving Tree as a parent or a kid. I get it now 🙂 No offense 🙂 ---
**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:** [April 1, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396/80 "2011-04-01T19:25:38Z")
Left Hand of Dorkness said re J.K. Rowling/Harry Potter -“Whatever she did, it left me cold: I did not find her characters as compelling as other YA characters in other YA fiction” - EXACTLY. sometimes it feels I’m the only one in the world who feels this way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-highly-praised-children-s-books-leave-you-cold/576396.md?page=5)