# Wierdness in old children's books **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 7, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488 "2008-03-07T19:19:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/21 "2008-03-08T00:25:35Z")
[QUOTE=Eggerhaus] I remember a book called “The Five Chinese Brothers”. One has a long stretchy neck, one could hold all the waters of the oceans in his mouth…etc. [/QUOTE] Oooh, that **was** weird! And what other children’s book features that many methods of execution?! ---
**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:** [March 8, 2008, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/22 "2008-03-08T00:45:21Z")
_The Water Babies_, a Victorian children’s book, begins with the protagonist, an abused young chimney-sweep, committing suicide by drowning himself. And _then_, lovely & magical things happen to him, that makes up for his horrible life! WHEE! Hemlock Society Youth League, anyone? ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/23 "2008-03-08T01:15:32Z")
[QUOTE=Eggerhaus] I remember a book called “The Five Chinese Brothers”. One has a long stretchy neck, one could hold all the waters of the oceans in his mouth…etc. [/QUOTE] I really loved that book. They were all identical, so every time the bad guy (the Emperor?) tried to kill them, they just took each other’s place. One of them could hold his breath, and so he was sent in when the brother was to be executed. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/24 "2008-03-08T01:55:55Z")
When we had our daughter, my MIL went out and bought _Grandma’s Big Book of Stories For Children_ or some such. A lot of the standard fairy tales are in there, but there’s quite a bit I’d never heard of – _I Love Little Pussy_, for example. :dubious: [QUOTE=Eggerhaus] I remember a book called “The Five Chinese Brothers”. One has a long stretchy neck, one could hold all the waters of the oceans in his mouth…etc. [/QUOTE] I hadn’t thought about that in ages, but add me to the list of those who loved this one as a kid. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/25 "2008-03-08T01:57:52Z")
[QUOTE=Eggerhaus] I remember a book called “The Five Chinese Brothers”. One has a long stretchy neck, one could hold all the waters of the oceans in his mouth…etc. [/QUOTE] Another fan here. Thanks for the gift of that memory, which must have been last recollected by me over 40+ years ago! Any idea the name or author of that one?? ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/26 "2008-03-08T02:01:07Z")
[QUOTE=pepperlandgirl] I really loved that book. They were all identical, so every time the bad guy (the Emperor?) tried to kill them, they just took each other’s place. … [/QUOTE] It was a judge. To this day my brothers and I still say “It’s only fair, said the judge” when someone makes a clueless decision (he kept allowing each of the brothers to go back to say goodbye to their mother, which would allow one of the other brothers to take his place). ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/27 "2008-03-08T02:06:09Z")
[QUOTE=Qadgop the Mercotan] Another fan here. Thanks for the gift of that memory, which must have been last recollected by me over 40+ years ago! Any idea the name or author of that one?? [/QUOTE] [_The Five Chinese Brothers_](http://www.amazon.com/Five-Chinese-Brothers-Paperstar/dp/0698113578/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204941789&sr=1-1), by Claire Huchet Bishop. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/28 "2008-03-08T02:12:17Z")
[QUOTE=OpalCat] I remember re-reading the first one as an adult and realizing how the man with the yellow hat gets George in the first place (essentially tricks him into climbing into the hat, then sticks him in a sack and takes him home) and being shocked :eek: :eek: :eek: and since then I just haven’t felt the same way about any of the stories. ☹ [/QUOTE] I forgot about how George came to America. The other unusual part was “After a good meal and a good pipe, George was very tired.” As [Ken Jennings](http://ken-jennings.com/blog/?p=259) can tell you, George has been tamed in his later years. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/29 "2008-03-08T02:21:28Z")
[QUOTE=OpalCat] I remember re-reading the first one as an adult and realizing how the man with the yellow hat gets George in the first place (essentially tricks him into climbing into the hat, then sticks him in a sack and takes him home) and being shocked :eek: :eek: :eek: and since then I just haven’t felt the same way about any of the stories. ☹ [/QUOTE] [You think that’s bad, check this out.](http://plif.courageunfettered.com/archive/wc106.gif)😛 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/30 "2008-03-08T03:17:26Z")
[QUOTE=Laughing Lagomorph] It was a judge. To this day my brothers and I still say “It’s only fair, said the judge” when someone makes a clueless decision (he kept allowing each of the brothers to go back to say goodbye to their mother, which would allow one of the other brothers to take his place). [/QUOTE] And they arr rook arike! ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/31 "2008-03-08T03:31:28Z")
[A charming, educational children’s book about the life of a fascinating desert reptile.](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/17/8e/dcf69833e7a0cceb904f0110._AA240_.L.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/32 "2008-03-08T03:57:51Z")
[QUOTE=Eggerhaus] I remember a book called “The Five Chinese Brothers”. One has a long stretchy neck, one could hold all the waters of the oceans in his mouth…etc. [/QUOTE] Ooo! Thanks for mentioning that! I was thinking about that book a while back, but couldn’t remember the title. For some reason I was remembering _12_ brothers, but it’s been a very long time since I read it 😉 It’s funny that people complain about the “stereotypical” artwork making all the Chinese people look the same. Those people should look at some typical Japanese anime. Know why the girls all have differently colored hair? It’s so the viewer can tell them apart _because otherwise they all look exactly alike_! ETA: I think it’s entirely possible that the book I had as a boy was [The Seven Chinese Brothers](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0590420577/ref=reg_hu-wl_mrai-recs). Same story, different author, more brothers. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/33 "2008-03-08T04:01:47Z")
[QUOTE=Qadgop the Mercotan] I remember a kids book called “Socks”, about a black kitten with 4 white paws. He was ostracized by the other kittens for being different. His solution: Dip his paws into an inkwell, and Voila! he looked just like the other kittens who were then nice to him. What a nice moral for today! :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] It’s not just these old books. There’s a relatively recent children’s book called “The Rainbow Fish” where there’s a fish who’s got these beautifully iridescent scales that he’s quite proud of. The other fish find him self-absorbed and conceited. OK, so far I get the set up. I figured it was headed for a “beauty is not skin deep” kind of a moral. But no. The central plot point is when a “dull and normal” fish asks him for one of his shiny scales, and the Rainbow Fish refuses, so all the normal fish snub him. Lonely and rejected, he consults with an octopus, who advises him to give up all his scales and distribute them out to all the other fish, one scale for everyone. He does this, after which they all like him and become his friends. WHAT?? The moral is that you should buy your friends? And/or that the way to deal with envy is to dilute everybody to a lowest common denominator? I _hate_ this book. As for weirdness in old children’s books, I was always kind of put off at how Curious George was basically kidnapped from the jungle. I mean, obviously kids were supposed to identify with George, yet the first thing we see is this guy with a Big Yellow Hat trapping him, crating him up and taking him a continent away. Where’s George’s mama? Crying in the jungle for him? _La crème de la weird_ to me, though, was the second book in the Oz series. I loved the movie and read the book, _The Wizard of Oz_, and found to my delight that there was a whole series to follow. I stopped after book #2 because of its “twist ending” worthy of M. Night Shayamalan… …where Tip, the ten-year-old boy protagonist of the entire book, is revealed in the last 10 pages or so to be Princess Ozma enchanted into a boy, and is turned “back” into a girl. Wha-aa-a? Did I mention I was a ten year old boy when I read this? ---
**Author:** ![Risha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5fc32e/32.png) [@Risha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Risha)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/34 "2008-03-08T04:23:10Z")
I’ve found **Peter Pan** to be very disturbing ever since we did Oedipus in high school English. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![hekk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@hekk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hekk)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/35 "2008-03-08T04:34:44Z")
Weren’t the original Brothers Grimm collected stories ridiculously dark and violent and gory? And anti-semitic? And pedophillic by today’s standards? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/36 "2008-03-08T04:40:27Z")
The story of the Chinese brothers was recently redone as a graphic novel, [Seven Sons](http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Sons-Alex-Grecian/dp/1932051465/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204951113&sr=8-1) by Alexander Grecian and Riley Rossmo. ---
**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/37 "2008-03-08T05:03:44Z")
[QUOTE=hekk] Weren’t the original Brothers Grimm collected stories ridiculously dark and violent and gory? And anti-semitic? And pedophillic by today’s standards? [/QUOTE] Yes, but the original stories were (way back when) mostly told by adults for an adult or mixed-age audience, not necessarily for children, so they don’t really fall under the OP’s criteria. JRB ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/38 "2008-03-08T05:07:51Z")
[QUOTE=TWDuke] I’ve read it, but I didn’t realize it was intended as a children’s book :eek: I agree about the freaked-out sexuality, although it could also be interpreted as very spiritual. It’s a beautiful poem, in any case. Christina Dante was either one of the most or least repressed writers of her time. [/QUOTE] I first read it in an old collection of “Best Loved Children’s Stories”, so at least one editor thought it was intended for children. I read this out loud once for a group of friends, and all agreed that it was quite erotic. Apparently, Christina Dante had been involved in a very torrid love affair that ended badly. After writing this poem, she started working in a home for “fallen women”. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/39 "2008-03-08T05:23:03Z")
Jean Webster’s _Dear Enemy_ (1910), a lovely book and the little-known sequel to _Daddy Long-Legs_ has, as a sub-theme, a dead-serious endorsement of eugenics. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2008, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488/40 "2008-03-08T07:14:09Z")
I rushed out to grab a Little Golden Book titled “Mister Dog”, the cover of which has him smoking a pipe. Only a matter of time before the Tobacco Gestapo burn that! And I have to admit that my patron saint C.S. Lewis’s portrayal of the Carmoleans (sp?) in my beloved NARNIA is a bit less than progressive. _L_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wierdness-in-old-childrens-books/440488.md?page=3)