Four of the most bizarre bits of classic books for babies
One of them is wondering when it’s okay to start looking at their phone.
Some of the most popular children’s books are very weird. There are families going on bear hunts, cats happy to wear hats and caterpillars at all-you-can-eat buffets. Surely the real world is enough to deal with. It’s mind-blowing enough that caterpillars turn into butterflies. And we mostly read these books to babies and small children at bedtime. It’s hardly surprising that they keep waking up all night.
Some books are more bizarre than others though and here are four of the most terrifying, shocking and deeply confusing bits that I've found.
*CONTAINS SPOILERS*
1. Goodnight Moon
By Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd
The number one creepiest children’s book. Without a doubt. It starts with a baby rabbit in bed and the words, “In the great green room there was a telephone and a red balloon.” Why has a baby got a telephone in their room? I wasn’t even allowed a clock radio in my room until I was 12. There’s also a fire without a fire guard and cats and mice running about so admittedly this is not your typical nursery.
The book continues to list what’s in the room: kittens, mittens, clocks, socks, toyhouse, mouse, comb, brush, bowl full of mush (I feel sick) and the quiet old lady who was whispering hush (creepy). Then it says goodnight to everything in the room with an accompanying picture of said item. Until towards the end there is just a blank page with the words, “Goodnight nobody”.
Why are they saying goodnight nobody? Who would do this? Probably only a creepy ghost child. It’s the blank page as well that I hate. Seriously, no horror film has terrified me more than this popular book designed to soothe children to sleep.
The colours don’t help. The pages are either a garish green, orange and yellow or black and white. It’s unnerving and I have to read ‘Where’s Spot’ three times afterwards to calm down.
2. The Tiger Who Came To Tea
By Judith Kerr
The weird bit of this classic book isn’t the tiger knocking on the door announcing it is hungry and coming in for tea. Or why Sophie is having so many cakes, biscuits and buns for her dinner. Or how the tiger managed to drink all the water from the tap – as I’m pretty sure that water doesn’t just run out like that. The weird bit for me is when daddy comes home after the tiger has gone. Sophie and her mummy tell him about what has happened. About a tiger turning up and eating every single morsel in the house and every single drop of water. And this is his expression.
Total and utter disinterest. Boredom, even. If I came home and was told a TIGER had come to TEA and eaten everything and then left, I’d be agog. Amazed. Stunned. My eyes would be wide, my mouth open. And yet this daddy’s face says, ‘I don’t care. You’re boring me. Shut up. I’m not interested’. I’m wondering if he only suggested going to the café to stop them from going on about this deadly boring story about a tiger.
The more I think about it, the more I’m worried he’s depressed. Perhaps it might help to cut down on all that beer he drinks. I guess the tiger did him a favour drinking all of that.
3.Not Now, Bernard
By David McKee
David McKee is behind children’s favourites Mr Benn, King Rollo and Elmer. But with Not Now Bernard, he dispensed with the heartwarming and wrote one of the darkest ever children’s books.
Bernard is a small boy who is trying to alert his parents to the fact that there is a monster in the garden. But they are busy and preoccupied and keep saying, “Not now Bernard.” So Bernard goes back into the garden. He says, “Hello Monster.” And then this happens:
The monster eats him. Every bit. Even his shoes. And this thunderbolt doesn’t take place at the end of the book. Or even near the end. This is page 9 of 24. It’s like Drew Barrymore’s murder 15 minutes into Scream. Or that shark eating Samuel L Jackson before Deep Blue Sea had got properly underway.
I was genuinely shocked when I first read this book to my son. I did not expect Bernard to die in this book for small children. Not since Three Blind Mice has there been such casual brutality in children’s verse. And at least it was at the end that their tails were cut off with a carving knife.
I kept thinking Bernard was going to climb out of the monster’s tummy and they’d all live happily ever after. But no. The monster goes into the house and tries to antagonise the mother and father. But they are still in their own disinterested world and just say, “Not now Bernard.” Maybe they’re related to the dad in The Tiger Who Came to Tea.
4. Dear Zoo
By Rod Campbell
This book starts with, “I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet.” It should then immediately end with, “And they wrote back saying, sorry you don’t get pets from zoos. Unless it’s that zoo run by Tiger King Joe Exotic. And that didn’t end well.”
Every page that follows is weird. The zoo delivers an elephant, but he’s too heavy. They post a giraffe, but he’s too tall. They send a lion, but he’s too fierce. Etc. etc. So they are all sent back until finally they ship a puppy and he was perfect so they kept him.
What I want to know is, who are they using to deliver these animals? Surely not Hermes. Or it would be, “They sent me a lion, but it didn’t arrive. Even though the website said it’d been delivered and there was no way of contacting anyone.” I emailed a delivery company to get a quote for having a giraffe shipped to me from Whipsnade Zoo. No reply. Nothing. Suggesting that it’s really not that easy to get a giraffe, lion or elephant sent to your home.
It’s also strange that every single animal mentioned is male. From the elephant to the puppy, it’s always ‘he’. This is already a weird zoo but now we discover it’s an all-male zoo like the animal equivalent of the Freemasons or the Garrick club. This does clear one thing up though. They’re probably using all their high-powered contacts to sort out these deliveries.
Maybe that’s what this guy has been doing at work all day. All those returns would be enough to make anyone world-weary.
I’m probably just scratching the surface of weirdness with these. Which ones have been missed? What do you think are the most bizarre bits of books for babies and toddlers? Add yours in the comments below.