The children’s bible. /s
Honorable mention to all Newbery Medal winners, AKA the Dead Dog Award.
Bridge To Terabithia goes a step further.
I read The Kite Runner as a kid, that was a fun one
Coraline. The book is significantly creepier than the movie and manages to perfectly strike the uncanny valley
Is coralline supposed to be “kid friendly”? It’s one of the few books I wasn’t comfortable reading in alone in the dark, no way I let a kid read that
Yup, story goes that the publisher thought it was too scary for children, so Neil Gaiman, the author, told the publisher to read it to her daughter. The daughter said it wasn’t scary, and so it was published as a children’s book. Years later, the daughter said that she was actually scared but lied about it because she wanted to know the ending
The Giving Tree
You need this: https://www.topherpayne.com/giving-tree
This is great and all, but what I really need is an alternative picture of shel silverstein to put on the back of the book.
That’s the scariest part.
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Wow, does that site design suck.
How hard is it to deliver ten JPGs?
Amazing!! Thanks for sharing!
He fixed some other fairly-problematic titles, too. Check them out on that same site :)
Where the Red Fern Grows (for older children)
Such a good book. But yeah even when at (all grown up) I read it to my son, I bawled
A series of unfortunate events was pretty bad for me.
My grandpa kept buying them, and i read them because I didn’t know how to not reqd a book given to me, but they definitely taught me how to say no to a gift.
The worst part was the fatalism
Man, I loved that series growing up. …I… Probably have some issues; and a positively arcane internal dictionary. Also, a photographic recollection of what dramatic irony is.
Aww cute bunnies!
Watership down.
Yeah, definitely not kid friendly. I’d much rather give them a light-hearted story about puppies, like The Plague Dogs.
Not Old Yeller, or Where The Red Fern Grows?
No, those work too. I couldn’t possibly exclude examples of such lovely books for children.
The Yearling
I just got the graphic novel for my ten year old niece. She likes the bunnies. I am a great uncle.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Actually just the art alone does the traumatizing really.
Have you seen those bullshit rerelease editions? SAD!
The book in the “Little House on the Prairie” series- (the one where Laura gets married and has a baby) and their childless neighbors ask to buy their baby. Is that enough trauma by itself? No. Not quite. It’s the lack of empathy from Laura or her husband, they treat them so badly, like they’re dangerous.
Watership Down.
:(
Not a book, but the May 2022 edition of Majid magazine. Why? In one of the comics, Amoona looks straight up horrifying. I didn’t even mention the real controversy here (and honestly it’s undeserved).
I think The Velveteen Rabbit is pretty fucked.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if they didn’t burn everything at the end. I mean, I get that sanitation in that situation was pretty darn important, but it was the author’s choice to choose something that required that outcome. That ending made me sad for a long time. Definitely didn’t know how to handle it. Not sure I can even now.
I was probably a child when I last read it, so I might have some details wrong, but here’s how I remember it:
A child is given a toy rabbit. A fairy visits the toy rabbit and gives it the gift of awareness. The child and the toy bond with each other and grow to love each other. Unfortunately, the child becomes dangerously ill, and after the sickness their possessions must be incinerated to prevent contamination. This includes the toy rabbit. However, the fairy arrives at the last minute, declaring that because the rabbit learned to love it was therefore a real rabbit, and with a wave of her wand transforms the toy into a living being and whisks it off to the woods were it lives happily ever after with the other rabbits.
So I guess my question is this - Do you think the velveteen rabbit and the fairy are real? Or is the fairy’s magic an invention of the child’s mind?
I think the narrative required the velveteen rabbit to be burned because it was so horrible. To the grown ups it’s just velveteen, but to the child it’s a dear friend. Even as children we know that being burned is horrible. So the child invents a solution where their toy can live happily ever after even after it’s thrown in the fire.
I think there’s definitely some Heaven and Hell symbolism to be had too. The velveteen rabbit was damned to hellfire unless it accepted love into its heart during its life. Then it is granted into the afterlife. In fact, you could say it was reincarnated into a higher spiritual form.
The story explores coping with loss as seen from the point of view of a child. Even though the velveteen rabbit was just a toy, the child has given it a soul. If you have a soul, when you die you go to the afterlife and live happily ever after. It’s a comforting story to a child, and one that many people around the world have believed throughout the ages.
I hadn’t thought about it being a coping mechanism for the child, the ‘fairy’ ‘rescuing’ the rabbit when it was just everything got burned anyways. I like the interpretation! Now I’m sad!
I don’t remember it very well, but I know I cried for like 2 hours when I finished “A Dog Called Kitty.”
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