The Best Worst Bedtime Stories

This makes me laugh! My husband and I just parted with our Pinocchio book because of this. It mentioned “pleasure island” and little boys were being kidnapped. Immediately, after I heard my husband reading it to our son, we shared a wide-eyed look, NOPE. Some classics are meant to be ignored. It was not a piece that I ever wanted to repeat or have my children pick up. It’s interesting how words, pictures, and plots can leave us feeling, even after a 5 minute read.

This comic is priceless. I remember having that “Oh, no…” thought a few times, like when I suddenly realized I was introducing my two year old to the concept of a monster under the bed! Also, having to constantly swap the pronouns on the fly to try to reduce so much early exposure to gender stereotypes.

Joanna, I think you’d get value out of “the underwater fancy dress parade” by Davina Bell and Aussie illustrator powerhouse Allison Colpoys. It’s a story about a fancy dress parade, the little boy in it is very shy and (spoiler alert) although he really wants to be brave and join in, can’t muster the courage, and that’s ok, he will try again another time. For me, so often I’m frustrated when books end in triumph, this one seems valuable for the kids that need a few more tries to muster courage.

I can’t stand Eloise! I know it’s supposed to be funny and cute but she is just so, so naughty and rude!

Ahh Green Eggs and Ham. When I’m reading it with my daughter I feel like saying NO means NO Sam I Am! Seriously, there’s a lot of pressure and coercion in this book. No, I will not fucking. eat green eggs and ham with a goat or on a boat, Sam. Thanks but no thanks.

Green Eggs and Ham just taught my two year old to say “NOT” very emphatically about anything he does NOT want to do. Now, when I ask him if he wants rice with his dinner, for example, he will say “NOT RICE” with a huge grin….

This reminds me of this article I just read: https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/01/dear-mother-goose-advice-column-childrens-book-characters.html?fbclid=IwAR3db9DZhaeHmjL7GC-JumJGgM0nUtU_ZZ3OsoeqzY5d_G9TJI8004rFL_E

“No” is a complete sentence, not an opportunity to bring goats and boats into a debate. Sure, you might like them—so what? Even if you did, it wouldn’t justify his creepy overinvestment in what you eat.”

hahahaha

We learned that Amelia Earhart version of “Little People, Big Dreams” is similarly depressing. The last page reads something along the lines of, “So she set off to fly around the world…never to return again. If you want to do something, do it. You never know how far you’ll get.” Womp womp womp…

What’s the problem with the gingerbread man? Isn’t the lesson about getting tricked?
And green eggs and ham? Is that bc it encourages pickiness in kids?

Can we add The Giving Tree? That boy MURDERS that tree, and she’s chill with it? I mean, I get the metaphor and I’d give my son everything I have, too, but there are such things as healthy boundaries!

Babar was a favorite, but looking back I can see now that the story is terribly sad and tragic (Bambi, but with big game hunting and elephants!) and basically all about colonization and “taming the savages.” Ick.

Trying to raise a feminist after I caught him saying questionable things about girls in his class (and he’s 4!!) I bought the Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls book. We would pick one story out of it to read together each time I put him to bed and we talked about all the great things Women have done (I’m a career woman myself). All was great until he picked Amelia Earhart… and we all know how that story ends. Problem is, I travel (almost) every single week work. Monday to Thursday… so I had a lot of explaining to do… #momfail. We haven’t picked up the book since. : /

Separately, I’m HORRIFIED at some children’s books out there as many have noted above. Some are so out of touch with the 21st century. Trying to find *good* and original Spanish books to read is also an uphill battle.

Ps. Jo, LOVE the community you’ve built here. I don’t write often (or really at all) but I love your posts and I love reading everyone’s comments here as well. The. Best. Community. Love to all.

I had this thought reading A Visitor for Bear. The bear is very clear that he does not want the mouse in his house but the mouse keeps breaking into his house. And of course, it ends with the bear realizing he likes this mouse that doesn’t take no for an answer. At least it did give us another opportunity to talk about consent and “no, means no.”

Can we just agree that times have changed and we don’t have to bundle everything from the past into neat little piles of atrocities foisted upon helpless (not) cultures. My god. Times have changed. For the better mostly! Story telling, thank goodness, has evolved. Let’s not bash what once was. Good people grew up on these various stories and didn’t read garbage into them. They were simply stories. Curious George wasn’t about slavery, paternalism, over-policing, or involuntary immigration (whatever that is). It was a silly and unrealistic story about a mischievous monkey. Nothing more.

Yes! The popularity of Curious George totally baffles me! “Here we see George do all the things the man in the yellow hat tells him not to do. He wreaks total havoc on the town. But don’t worry, kids. It all works out and George is the best!” Haha!

What really got me about Curious George wasn’t that he’s curious, it was that it’s a cute, animal-ized story about slavery, paternalism and over-policing. He gets trapped, gets told he’ll “really like it” in a place he can’t escape, is thrown in jail for “making trouble” by calling the fire department (because he didn’t know how our phone systems worked – like any involuntary immigrant). And it’s all dressed up as cute because he’s a little monkey and “monkeys” just can’t help but be bad – which is a whole other thing to unpack. Curious George is The. Worst.

HAH! So true! I have vague childhood memories that I used to love Paul Bunyan & Blue, but then I re-read Paul Bunyan – terrible ethos for today!