Struwwelpeter. We had an English copy handed down by my grandfather. It’s insane.
Example: “Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem Feuerzeug (“The Very Sad Tale with the Matches”): A girl plays with matches, accidentally ignites herself and burns to death. Only her cats mourn her.”
I still have my toddler books with the graphic Struwwelpeter running in with shears and cutting the thumbs off the boy who wouldn’t stop sucking them.
It’s a… “nostalgic” childhood trauma?
Holy shit
(“The Story of the Wild Huntsman”) is the only story not primarily focused on children. In it, a hare steals a hunter’s musket and eyeglasses and begins to hunt the hunter. In the ensuing chaos, the hare’s child is burned by hot coffee and the hunter jumps into a well.
lol wut?
With stories like this out there why are the only movies that get made recycled trash as they milk the 4th, 5th, 6th movies in a franchise?
The children’s bible. /s
Watership Down.
:(
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.
I just got the graphic novel for my ten year old niece. She likes the bunnies. I am a great uncle.
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. That author’s imagination was daaaaark.
Coraline is pretty intense.
A quote from Neil Gaiman about his editor’s daughter, who served as the book’s first audience
I told her, “You know, we kind of have you to thank for all this, because you weren’t scared by it.” And she said, “Actually, I was terrified. But I wanted to know what happened next. I knew if I let anybody know I was scared, I wouldn’t find out.”
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
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
A lot of the original versions of the brothers Grimm stories. For example Cinderella, one of the sisters chops off bits of her feet so that she can try and get into the shoe Cinderella dropped. I think the Prince only figured it out because she’s dripping in blood.
A lot of those were meant to keep children in line. Also to teach girls that the only way they’ll be able to get ahead in life is to marry into money.
But it doesn’t pay off for the stepsister at all. She’s just bleeding, the story is about the triumph of The Grind- Cinderella stuck to virtue, hard work, etc.
The original Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books, with the fucked up heroin withdrawal style illustrations
The legend that is Stephen Gammell.
I don’t remember which book it was in, but the story about the person calling every single hour only to find out he was in the house the whole time scared me back in the day so much I absolutely dreaded going back to my room in the basement at night. Especially since my room was the furthest from the stairs.
based. The chick from the spiderbite story STILL lives rent free in my memory, that, and the grim reaper pointing
Also the chihuahua rat.
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.
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.
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.
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Amazing!! Thanks for sharing!
He fixed some other fairly-problematic titles, too. Check them out on that same site :)
Wow, does that site design suck.
How hard is it to deliver ten JPGs?
I would say almost all of them. At least the classics
No wonder we’re all empaths. And we used video games to escape our feelings.
= ADHD
Little red riding hood - wolf eats your grandma.
Hansel and Gretel - forced out by stepmother, forced to kill a witch to survive.
Three little pigs - wolf kills your brother’s.The “classics” are really bad
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark sure the fuck isn’t a cuddly-looking bait-and-switch, but it is plainly aimed at a younger audience. Basically a collection of standard campfire stories and spooky e-mail forwards… with nightmare-fuel watercolor illustrations.
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.
