Books You Loved as a Child But Don't Want for Your Kids

[Anonymous]

Little Black Sambo. As a kid I just loved the tigers wearing clothes and turning into butter, but OMG even the title is racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nothing. Books are about creativity and imagination - there's nothing wrong with learning about the evolution of child development by teaching a 3 yr old that in the olden days it was common to spank children but now we know how it can affect them.

Sorry, not appropriate for the age this was written for. I can discuss the evolution when she is older. We won’t be reading this at bedtime for awhile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Little Black Sambo. As a kid I just loved the tigers wearing clothes and turning into butter, but OMG even the title is racist.

I was just going to post this! I loved the book, OMG...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The little match girl - I LOVED it. An orphan survives by selling matches on the street corner. On Christmas Eve she’s very cold in a blizzard and sees a family in their home all warm and happy. They welcome her in and she gets to enjoy this beautiful family scene. Except she didn’t really, that was a hallucination from hypothermia and she’s dead found dead on the street corner in the snow on Xmas morning.

I remember this book! Geez looking at this list and thinking about books I read as a kid, it was bleak stuff!

I remember this book too. I was honestly terrified of it.

[Anonymous]

Johnny Tremain was awful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The little match girl - I LOVED it. An orphan survives by selling matches on the street corner. On Christmas Eve she’s very cold in a blizzard and sees a family in their home all warm and happy. They welcome her in and she gets to enjoy this beautiful family scene. Except she didn’t really, that was a hallucination from hypothermia and she’s dead found dead on the street corner in the snow on Xmas morning.

OMG I remember this book. My mom brought it home for me to read and I felt so emotionally manipulated by it. Much worse than Bambi's mom dying.

That sounds very similar to a short story I read as an assignment in middle school- To Build A Fire, I think it was a Jack London short story. A man was dying of hypothermia in Yukon Territory, and he had matches to light a fire but his hands were too cold to light the matches, he tried a few different things to warm his hands up including killing his dog and trying to warm his hands in the dog's guts, but nothing worked, and he wasn't ever able to make a fire with his matches, and he died. The story also stuck with me a lot. I'd let my kid read it though- Little Match Girl sounds a little more disturbing though

[Anonymous]

Yea, I actually got a bunch of my old childrens books and now read them to my son who is 3.5. Ping was one, I remember loving it, but it is pretty messed up! He still asks for it sometimes, but I try to keep it out of sight, out of mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Johnny Tremain was awful!

I loved that book!! I was 11 when I read it so maybe i was old enough to handle the depressing stuff that happened? But I loved it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The little match girl - I LOVED it. An orphan survives by selling matches on the street corner. On Christmas Eve she’s very cold in a blizzard and sees a family in their home all warm and happy. They welcome her in and she gets to enjoy this beautiful family scene. Except she didn’t really, that was a hallucination from hypothermia and she’s dead found dead on the street corner in the snow on Xmas morning.

That's always been my favorite fairy tale. It's not a racist or problematic story. Just sad. That's no reason to get rid of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bedtime For Frances. Basically says, go to bed or I’ll hit you. Yikes!

Lol

You haven't met my DS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The little match girl - I LOVED it. An orphan survives by selling matches on the street corner. On Christmas Eve she’s very cold in a blizzard and sees a family in their home all warm and happy. They welcome her in and she gets to enjoy this beautiful family scene. Except she didn’t really, that was a hallucination from hypothermia and she’s dead found dead on the street corner in the snow on Xmas morning.

That's always been my favorite fairy tale. It's not a racist or problematic story. Just sad. That's no reason to get rid of it.

That's true - I guess I'm more weirded out by my own childhood obsession with it, its so so morbid!

[Anonymous]

PP above. I should add though, that I did ultimately read it with my son and we discussed it...the good and the bad. So I guess I can't say I kept him from the book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Little Black Sambo. As a kid I just loved the tigers wearing clothes and turning into butter, but OMG even the title is racist.

I was just going to post this! I loved the book, OMG...

They've reissued it without the racist material. The boy and his parents are given real names, and are clearly identified as Indian, and that changes everything. The rest of the text had nothing racist in it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C8S9VPC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The little match girl - I LOVED it. An orphan survives by selling matches on the street corner. On Christmas Eve she’s very cold in a blizzard and sees a family in their home all warm and happy. They welcome her in and she gets to enjoy this beautiful family scene. Except she didn’t really, that was a hallucination from hypothermia and she’s dead found dead on the street corner in the snow on Xmas morning.

Right?!?!?! I had this book as a kid and my parents recently found it and gave it to me....I started reading it to my son (not remembering the story line) and quickly made up a happy ending!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remember Johnny Tremain?

One of my favorite books and definitely a good one for learning about The American Revolution.