Childrens Books that Bothered You

I loved "The Giver", but I did not read it until eighth grade. Third grade seems much too early for that book!

I am not sure if you are asking for books that adults feel are inappropriate for children, or books that we read as children and did not like. If it is the former, I would say trashy novelizations of popular TV shows! I was guilty of reading adaptations of Sweet Valley High, and I think now that it is terrible for children to watch TV and then read books about TV which reinforce their love of watching TV. It seems like a vicious cycle to me--they need more worlds to explore! For a more contemporary example I am extremely opposed to children reading "Twilight". The content is far too mature for nine-year-old girls who I see reading it!

If it is the latter, I would say that as a young reader I had trouble enjoying any story in which the main character was treated unjustly, even if the offending party was brought to justice in the end. I did not feel comfortable after "The Little Princess", for example, because the little girl was treated so poorly by people who were supposed to be taking care of her. Many Disney movies bothered me for the same reason. Tragic and unfair situations did not sit well with me as a child, and I do not think that young children should be made to read anything overly upsetting.

I hope this is helpful!

Scary Stories for Sleepovers. My 3rd grade teacher read one of those, and I have been afraid of lakes with islands in them ever since. I'm 25 now.

Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree." I loathe that book. It was held up to me as "what love really is," giving and giving until there's nothing left of yourself. I think it sets people up to be seriously used, manipulated, and taught that you are not important in a relationship, you should swallow your own needs or feelings and lay down like a doormat.... even now that book riles me up.

"Dogger" by Shirley Hughes. Not sure how famous that one is, but we had it at my house growing up and the story was about a boy and his favorite stuffed animal (security animal, like a security blanket-- takes him everywhere, etc, etc), which he loses at school. There is a school carnival and he sees Dogger being offered as a prize for one of the games. However, before he can alert his family so they can sort things out, some girl wins Dogger. The boy tries to explain the mix-up, but the girl is a selfish bitch and won't give him back, until the boy's sister selflessly steps in to trade her hard-won prize teddy bear (which is bigger and not worn out like Dogger) for her brother's toy.

The only message I got from the story is that life is not fair and there are actually people shitty enough to take away things you love and not give a flying fuck about how much it hurts you-- and you better hope you have connections with the means to persuade them otherwise or else you're going to be miserable and lose everything of importance to you.

The "Busytown" series by Richard Scarry was a little disturbing to me for one particular character. The town was populated by all these anthropomorphic animals and the, BUTCHER was a PIG! There are scenes of this cannibalistic pig hanging hams, sausages and all sorts of related meats in his shop window...

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Deerskin - by Robin McKinley

It's often called her first adult novel...but when I picked it up (at age 10), it was always shelved with her other books and she wrote YA fantasy. If you stretch your tolerances, it might be YA...but I don't think most parents would think so. Mine didn't care. If I could read it, it must be the right level for me to read but I always read several grades above my level. Deerskin made quite an impression at that age and started the type of nightmare that Stephen King or other adult horror novels never gave me. Even now, if I notice it in the YA shelves, I pull it out and drop it on the customer service desk, and try to explain where it should be. Most bookstores here have it listed as being shelved with the adult books but somehow it always ends up in YA anyway...

Animalia. A thousand times, Animalia. Particularly the "V" page. Book was so fricking creepy.

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Ditto ditto ditto on "The Giving Tree". Something just..went wrong there. Well, I guess it might not have and that's even scarier- that someone *meant* that.
On a lighter note, Roald Dahl's "The Witches" scared me out my skin for years when I was a child. Going from "Matilda" to that was a bit of a shocker for an seven year old.

maybe a bit younger than what you're looking for, but the magic finger by roald dahl and thidwick the big hearted moose by dr seuss really freaked me out when i was a kid.

the magic finger - the narrator lives next door to a family who hunts ducks for fun. she also has a magic finger that, when she gets angry she can't control. the family's sons upset her and she points her finger at them, and the next day the family wake up as tiny people with wings for arms, with their house being taken over by human sized ducks with human arms. the family promises not to shoot ducks anymore and both they and the ducks are returned to normal, but the whole story really scared me when i first read it (when i was eight, i think). it also ends with the girl finding out another family shoots dcks and she actually runs off to punish them.

thidwick the big hearted moose - a large group of animals take refuge on thidwicks horns so the can cross a lake, but thidwick ends up being chased by hunters. remembering that antler shedding season has arrived, thidwick bucks off his antlers and swims across the lake. on the last page was thidwick's antlers on the hunting club wall, with all the animals that had been living on them dead and stuffed on top.

Also hated "The Giving Tree" and really hate it more now that I'm a mother. Oh sure, cut me down and make me a boat, sail away and not come back until you're an old man who has nothing left and sit on my withered stump. Um, no.

I also was terrified by the short story "The Swan" in "The Wonderful Tale of Henry Sugar" by Roald Dahl. Absolutely gut-wrenching. It's about a boy who is bullied, and then the bullies kill a swan, cut it up, tie the cut-off wings to the boy's arms and tell him to climb a tree and fly home. It was the only book I ever purposely defaced, just in the hopes of somehow erasing that story from my head.

Encourage literacy. Tell a kid Chaucer's too dirty to read.

As a kid I was always bothered by scenes of animal death or torture (still am, actually), so I had a hard time opening the book Babar -- because inevitably I'd get to the page where the poachers kill Babar's mom! Also, I couldn't stand The Story of Ping, in which the last duck to, umm, board a ship (?) every day gets a nice big whack on the head.

And I echo the comments about The Giving Tree. Talk about a dysfunctional relationship with one's environment. Sheesh.

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Not sure if it counts as a children's book - I read it when I was twelve, for school - Z For Zachariah. Oh god, that was HORRIBLE D:

Plus, when I found out that the author wrote The Silver Crown, which was one of my FAVOURITE books, I was severely confused.

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Sounder? I had to read that in 6th grade and the part with the ear really freaked me out. My enire class thought the same way.

On My Honor. Reading about all that guilt bothered me. There were always the Goosebumps series, especially "One Day in Horrorland" and "Scary Stories to Read in the Dark" were popular at my school, but I think someone already mentioned that.

Anything by Dr. Seuss.

I was so scared that somehow I was going to end up in his freaky world where there were precarious rock formations that made paths into nothingness and I wouldn't be able to keep my balance and fall off.

Also the one about pants walking around at night still scares me.

The Little Matchgirl by Hans Christian Anderson.

An adaptation, of course, but anything written by him was just ... I Did Not Like It.

Whenever I can't think of what to write next, I have Gumsock blow something up.

Bunnicula. What the heck? A vegetarian vampire rabbit that sucks the juice out of fruit turning it white? How strangely weird and disturbing. Hated the book. Why'd they make me read it it 3rd grade?

The Poky Little Puppy

I hate reading this to my kids.

The moral is, if you disobey your mother and sneak under the fence, you won't get any dessert. BUT if you disobey your mother and sneak under the fence, but then don't come home until after bedtime so that your siblings take all the blame, you'll be the winner and get all of the dessert for your own. That, and what kind of mother goes to bed and doesn't notice that one of her puppies never returned?

The TV show was based on the books, not the other way around. I think the series continued to be written after the show came out, and there certainly are books based on TV shows (I've seen them for Buffy and Smallville), but Sweet Valley High started as books.

I disagree. I think the books encourage reading as much as they encourage TV watching. Sure, it would be nice if they were reading the classics, but any reading is better than none. If nothing else, the child can read a new novel instead of watching reruns.

I'm not sure if it counts as "not sitting right," but I did come away with the wrong message: Velveteen Rabbit. I loved the book, but instead of focusing on the bunny coming to life, I fixated on the part where the toy was going to be burned because the little boy hugged it while he was sick. Whenever I got sick, I pushed my toys away and hugged my pillow or blankets, because I wouldn't care if they had to be destroyed and replaced.

I agree with the poster who said "On My Honor." I never liked that one.

This is newer, but "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" irritates me. I know it's very popular, but I skimmed through it and hated the narrator. I don't know if I would have liked it when I was younger and less aware of how completely selfish and self-centered he was.

"Horse and His Boy." I adored the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia, but not that one. It's the only one I never reread.

My sister holds the same opinion. Oddly, it's my favorite in the series.

And, really, I'm probaby the odd-ball in this thread. I loved The Giving Tree, The Velveteen Rabbit, and The Pokey Little Puppy. I just wasn't disturbed by much as a kid, I guess. I read A LOT, though, so that may have had something to do with it.

I will say, however, that a couple books that made me cry as a kid (around age 10 or so) were Black Beauty and Where the Red Fern Grows. But I don't hate them just because it was distressing to read about animals being mistreated or clawed to death by a mountain lion. In fact, the latter of the two is my most favorite book of all time. ^_^

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A Wind in the Door caused my first panic attack. There's just something about the scene where the snake drives off Meg's teacher that majorly freaked me out. I had to throw the book across the room, and I haven't read any of l'Engle's work since.

I'm sad that Dogger and The Velveteen rabbit came up in here. I loved both those books - although I always made sure I knew exactly where my toys were the morning before the school fete... I never much liked Roal Dahl (I've spelled that wrong...) though - his stuff for younger readers was good, but he was on too much of a deliberate gross out which I just found uncomfortable, plus he clearly hated women in stuff like 'James and the Giant Peach' or 'George's Marvellous Medicine' (I was a bit of a feminist from a very young age). I didn't mind gore and stupidly high body counts (massive Robin Jarvis fan) but it was the general ickyness of his characters that got me.

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Sleeping Beauty. I absolutely adore the movie, but in the book they made it out as looks are everything. All the young man knew was she was pretty, so he goes to rescue her. Then he sees her and she's pretty and he kisses and marries her. It's rediculous. Love ya, Grimm Bros, but honestly.

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Love You Forever.
I thought the book was cool when I was small, but the mother is a creepy bitch and she crawls outside her son's bedroom and stares at him while he's sleeping. And then when he finally moves out and gets his own home, she waits until he goes to sleep, then uses a ladder she has attached to the roof of her car to climb through his window and rock him to sleep. He's like... 30 at this point. Seriously? The hell.

Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark
Parts of it weren't so scary, but let us examine the story of Harold: A scarecrow, he is neglected by his two owners until one day he gets them and skins them. He then lays their skins on the roof to tan in the sun. Yeah.
And just the illustrations were freakin' horrible. They're scarring. Google them. o_o

I'm probably in the minority, but I thought Where the Wild Things Are was really creepy looking! haha. And I loved The Giving Tree. :)

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You know, I was just discussing this the other day with a friend. And I simply HATE Stuart Little. I know it's a classic and a Newberry and all, but in my opinion, it's gross. I mean, a mouse being *born* to an otherwise normal American family? ahhhhhh! PLEASE!!!!!!!

Thank you all SO much for these comments. I am laughing so hard and I really needed that!

Yes, yes yes -- to "Love You Forever." I first saw it when looking for a book for my younger daughter, and I thought it was absolutely disgusting and creepy -- the old mother climbing through the window and holding her grownup son in her lap in the rocker. It's demented. What person would give this to a child to read? Again, a case of some weird adult thinking this is comforting to a kid. It would've given my daughter nightmares. It gave me one.

Peter Rabbit is another classic that always upset me as a kid, but my own children really liked it. Maybe they're gruesome. But it used to scare me how murderous that farmer was, practically breaking his leg to kill little Peter Rabbit just because he ate some lettuce.

Ellie Mae

See, I loved the Little Matchgirl and Hans Christian Anderson.

"How to Steal a Dog" by Barbara O'Connor - The parents split up, so the girl and her brother and her mom live in a car, and then an abandoned house, and the whole thing is very depressing.

"If I Die Before I Wake" is a Sweet Valley Twins book that terrified me. It's like Freddy, sort of, except it's a little girl and the whole thing gave me nightmares.

Also, I was read the Chronicles of Narnia when I was six, and when I found out years and years later that it was a metaphor for Christianity, I was very upset. I felt like I'd been tricked- here I thought I was getting a cool story with talking animals and stuff, and really I was being snuck religion.

"Sounder"
"Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry"
"Hatchet"
"The Little Princess"
"Bridge to Terebithia"

All of these were too intense and sad and freaked me right out when I was a child. *Shudder*

(if you ask me where my own home is, the only answer I can give is that it's not a place but words. I live in words and words are where I belong.)

I agree with a lot of these.
The Giving Tree - creepy and depressing. It was one of my parents favorite books so they read it to me a lot. I hated it.
The Velveteen Rabbit - not too bad until the end when they burn the rabbit. Seriously traumatic for a girl who loved rabbits as a kid.
Any of the 'Scary Stories to tel in the Dark' books gave me the creeps. My imagination ran a little too wild with those books.
'Where the Wild Things Are' - I don't remember what it was I didn't like but I know I hated the book.
'Watership Down' - never read it but we watched the movie in elementary school and it creeped me out.
'The Witches' by Roald Dahl. I was terrified of being turned into a mouse or gerbil or whatever it is they do.

Lastly, 'My Brother Sam is Dead' - read in 5th grade as part of a Revolutionary War unit. Seriously, why go through an entire book when the ending is revealed in the title? It was the first book I remember putting down and thinking I just read a slow motion train wreck.