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.”
Not a book, but as a kid I absolutely loved The Land Before Time.
It’s such a terribly sad and traumatizing movie for a young child.
The children’s bible. /s
Watership Down.
:(
I don’t remember it very well, but I know I cried for like 2 hours when I finished “A Dog Called Kitty.”
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
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. That author’s imagination was daaaaark.
Antek by Bolesław Prus
Yeah we just gonna shove a kid in the oven for three Hail Marys
The Giving Tree
You need this: https://www.topherpayne.com/giving-tree
Amazing!! Thanks for sharing!
He fixed some other fairly-problematic titles, too. Check them out on that same site :)
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.
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.”
Sounds like a German kiss story to me hah.
Mentioned by Dwight in The Office!
(“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?
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
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
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
Aww cute bunnies!
Watership down.
I just got the graphic novel for my ten year old niece. She likes the bunnies. I am a great uncle.
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.
