Children's books to AVOID - Page 3

[Lady Madonna]

Any of the Carl books - who the h*ll thinks it's OK to leave the baby with the dog?!? One of the ones I saw had the parents leave the baby with Carl on Christmas Eve! Overnight!

Pthooey!

[siobhang]

Originally Posted by mommy_e

We donated a Thomas the Train one. I don't generally like them anyway, but this one was particularly bad. It had one of the trains going past a "Danger" sign and falling in the ocean. When Sir Topham Hatt comes to see him, he asks to get out as he is cold and Sir TH says "No, you have to stay there until nightfall, you were a very bad train" or something to that effect. I was just floored the first time I read it.

the thomas books have a fascinating subtext. The most obvious one is "horrid lorries" - where some trucks come to do the work of the trains but they get into "accidents" (I think it is implied that the trains sabatoged them) and are sent away and "the tank engines were allowed to do their old jobs again. They worked extra hard to ensure they were really useful engines" (or some such, I am paraphrasing).

Wow, talk about union busting.

Siobhan

[arlecchina]

I do not and would not censor any reading materials. you can always discuss afterwards with an alternate POV.

[Mama Poot]

The Whipping Boy. Tale of a spoiled prince that lives in a land where royal children cant be punished, so a poor boy from the streets is brought in and gets whipped every time the prince misbehaves. There are some good parts, but I just cant get around the violence that infiltrates the whole book.

[amwww]

yes, the whipping boy totally f*ed me up as a kid... and as an older kid, books about the holocaust, etc.... and love you forever, i agree, is really creepy. i like the book turntable timmy about a kid that wants to be a dj... good propaganda, imo...

[grisaleen]

My SIL reads a book to her children where there's this bossy little girl at a party. At the end, the grandmother bakes the little girl into a pie and they all eat it!

[WinterBaby]

Oh gosh, Clack Clack Moo and Giggle Giggle Quack are a hit in our house, as is Good Dog, Carl. My recently turned for year old thinks that Carl book is hysterical. The very idea of the dog caring for the baby she thinks is quite funny, and will "read" it to others (as it has no words.) We Have Walter the Farting Dog at the yard Sale or some such title. I hate it, but dd thinks it's great. We always have to discuss after we read it that daddies don't really sell their kids' dogs and lie (how awful is that?,) and clowns aren't bad men or bank robbers... but gosh, insert farting into something and you've sold my daughter on it, *sigh. I'd like her to forget she has it, and ditch it. My mother didn't care for Wind in the Willows when she read it after buying it for dd - took it back, lol. Something about Toad stealing a car, joy riding, wrecking it, not getting into any trouble. We also have a book called "That's Disgusting," my daughter loves that makes her grandfather blanch when asked to read it though, heh. It starts out gently with disgusting things like eating with your hands and rolling in the mud, then works up to sticking your finger in the cat's behind and swimming in sewage. Delightful book, I promise, lol. There are a lot of things I see in her literature that I don't respond well to, but I guess it becomes obvious we're not big censorers. I talk about the things I'm uncomfortable with, which is maybe harder, but I can hope, ultimately worth it. (Re: that whipping boy thing, you know that same scenario brought up a lot of questions with daughter while reading a young childrens book about the Dalai Lama. Apparently when he was taken to the monastery as a young boy, his brother was taken with him as a companion, and the brother was beaten if the dalai lama misbehaved - because, well, you can't beat the dalai lama, I guess. That was a tough one to address, heh.)

[stik]

I'm another _Click Clack Moo_ lover. I love doing the voices. And I also belong to a union.

Every now and then, when I'm trying to explain unions and Marxism to my high school students, one of them will say, "hey, that's just like _Click Clack Moo_!" THat book has given me beautiful teachable moments.

[mamajody]

My least favorite so far are the Curious F***** George Books. They came to have this name through my 7 years of teaching when I was forced to use them in my K-2 reading classes. A poacher steals a little monkey away from his home by putting him in a sack, and then over the course of the books repeatedly neglects him and allows him to get into all sorts of dangerous situations. Truly awful!

Another class of books I avoid are books that overtly teach Christianity. I am not a Christian, but my DH's family are Catholic. His grandmother has given us at least a dozen beautiful books that are all allegories. I just can't go there with DD yet. Someday we will explore these books together, but she is only 3. One particularly gruesome one got past my mother though. The Legend of the Candy Cane. Did you know the red stripes represent the blood of Christ? It's good to read through before you buy. Now my mother does too.

[mz_libbie22]

another one i don't care for is "No, David!". i don't like how it portrays the "bad" boy, and i think the illustrations are horrendous.

[UnschoolnMa]

We don't censor books, but we do discuss whatever comes up. I have certainly ran across things that totally wierd me out over the years.

Recently we had some little ones over for the night, and they brought some books with them. There was one little board book about Halloween. Each page had a question and then you'd flip up something to get an answer. They seemed to be matching the people in the homes' race with the trick or treater...right down to a red headed, freckle faced family named something Irish sounding and a leprachaun shows up at their door. It rubbed me totally wrong at the time.

[RubyWild]

I don't buy books that are product/TV/corporate related.
I don't feel compelled to read books against my will, meaning I don't read Rainbow Fish, or Cat in the Hat, or books that I find sexist or religious.

When my Dd starts wanting to choose her own books, we'll start tackling those issues, but I'm not going out of my way to read those books to her.

[moppity]

My DD has a couple of cheapie board books that I can't stand and am in the process of getting rid of (waiting for her to forget about them). One is a zoo one that I picked up without even looking through because she loves animals...now when I read it to her I skip the page that says "The bear loves to dance and sing and jump through a fiery ring" with a bear in a costume.

The other book came in a pack of 6 board books and its about the circus and the WHOLE book is animals performing.

Can we tell I abhor perfoming animals

[Mama2E&O]

I haven't read all the replies yet so I'm not sure if anyone said this one:
I don't like the "No David" and "David gets in Trouble" books. The whole story is a little boy named DAvid who lookes toddler/preschooler age and on every page he is getting into trouble and the parent is saying stuff like: "NO DAVID! NO NO NO!"
I started reading it to my two year old and he got very emotional and upset. Needless to say we did not finish it.

[Mama2E&O]

oops, someone else said "no David" after all!

[MizLiz]

Originally Posted by arlecchina

I do not and would not censor any reading materials. you can always discuss afterwards with an alternate POV.

: I totally agree with you arlecchina. I think it's wrong to impose my own moral judgements on to what my children want to read about. They are not sponges who are going to absorb every word or story that they hear (often they can easily point out something that they find offensive that they hear in a story or see on a movie). I'm not adverse to saying "Hey, I find that weird/mean/uncomfortable and this is why... how do you feel about it?"... but really don't get the idea of refusing to allow my children to read books such as the "Carl" series, "I Love You Forever", the Thomas books, etc. : It is remeniscent of the whole "To Kill a Mockingbird" issue and I, frankly, have a real hard time condoning censorship.

[mummy marja]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Canadianmommax3
what is wrong with love you forever?



Isn't that the one where the mom breaks into the adult son's house in the middle of the night and rocks him?

Reminds me of how if I don't answer the phone my mom drives over, because her right to hear from me right away trumps my right to set boundaries. (I don't believe that I have to answer the phone just because it rings.)

we have Love You Forever and dd likes it. She gets all cuddly with me every time I read it. But it IS a little much, I know. When the mother breaks into her adult son's home and rocks him, I sometimes add, "and the grown-up man says, "get out of my house, mom!""

If I come across a line in a book that I think is inappropriate, I will usually add a comment or talk about it after the story. It gets Dd thinking and she realizes that not everything we read is absolutely right and true.

[Daffodil]

When there are threads like this, a bunch of people always mention Rainbow Fish. I got it from the library once to see what it was really like, and it didn't seem so bad to me. I mean, the story and pictures are boring, but I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the message. One thing people seem to forget about it is that at the beginning of the book, the other fish ask Rainbow Fish to play with them, but he refuses because he thinks he's better than they are. That's why they start to dislike him - not because he's more beautiful than they are, but because he acts like a jerk.

One book I got rid of because I really disliked it was a Robert Munsch one called Mortimer. A kid sings loudly in bed and annoys everyone in his family; they eventually call the police, but the police can't get him to stop either. No one is nice to anyone else, and the story is boring and repetitive.

[HollyBearsMom]

Originally Posted by Lady Madonna

Any of the Carl books - who the h*ll thinks it's OK to leave the baby with the dog?!? One of the ones I saw had the parents leave the baby with Carl on Christmas Eve! Overnight!

Pthooey!

another series my son loves. We are total dog people, he calls our dogs his brothers. He LOVES the idea of a dog watching out for him, especially at Christmas. Since the books have no word it is so great to hear my son make up so many different "plots" so to speak, each time we read them.

I guess I shouldn't mention my sons other favorite: Captain Underpants : Like Walter the farting dog my son just can not get enough of that type of humour. We own the whole series and my son love to have a few chapter read to him before bed, and then he "reads" the rest. He basically has the cartoon memorized so to him it is reading.

The only time I really felt like censoring was when my DH brought home Tom Sawyer when our son just turned 3. I hadn't read it in years and my knee jerk reaction was to censor the murder, blood, funeral. Instead since my did not seem interested I just put it away. We are pulling it this Fall to try again. However I think I am going to read the whole thing through again first.

[JustJamie]

Since my DD's only 12 months, I haven't had to "censor" anything yet.

I do refuse to have any commercialized thing in my house - she has no Elmo, Barney, or any of that other crap that's out there. She can watch the shows on TV once in a blue moon, but that's it. I'm not buying any of it.

Other than that, I will not censor what she reads. I will try to limit her to age and comprehension-appriopriate material, but that's it.

I still remember my school trying to suspend me for reading Gone With The Wind in 3rd grade.