conuly

I decided to see if any sillies had reviewed baby books. Without further ado... The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This book has seriously hindered my son's development. After reading the book to him religiously before bedtime, he now believes himself to be just like the caterpillar. He claims to be very hungry all the time. He is constantly eating, and is becoming noticeably heavier. Unfortunately in his case I don't believe that he will turn into a beautiful butterfly at the end!

If your child's weight gain is that bad, why are you feeding him so much?

At the preschool I work at, VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR was read during "butterfly week". As a butterfly gardener, and someone who raises caterpillars indoors and releases the butterflies once they've emerged, I was very dissapointed by this book. The real facts of the life cycle of the butterfly are fascinating for any child, but the author chose to write a fictional book on how much caterpillars eat, including all sorts of human foods. Also butterflies do not spin cocoons--moths do. The preschoolers learned very little from this book

Heaven forbid that children just have fun reading a classic piece of fiction... *rolls her eyes loudly*

Goodnight, Moon

Worst of all, I find it creepy that the rabbits own a cat.

In fairness, the rest of her review was not silly. But that one line ruined it. Plenty of people don't like Goodnight, Moon, but "the rabbits own a cat" has to be the strangest reason I've ever heard.

Cat in the Hat

Dr Seuss was an evil genius, bent on traumatising children.

As a child, his books used to terrify me. Particularly The Cat in the Hat, as well as the sinister Thing duo.

Unless you're children are aficionados of Stephen King, I urge you to avoid this title.

Riiiiiiight. Dude. Get help. If you're still ranting about this so many years later.... just go. Was anyone else traumatized by Dr. Seuss?

Green Eggs and Ham (my personal favorite)

This book is SOOOOOOOO annoying! What's the deal with all the rhyming? That got on my last nerve. I can't believe this book is a children's "classic". This book does for childrens' books what Jim Jones did for children's drinks (kool-aid, that is). If you want a GREAT children's book, try "Atlas Shrugged" the pop-up book by Ayn Rand.

ATLAS SHRUGGED IS NOT A POP-UP BOOK! NOTHING BY AYN RAND SHOULD BE WITHIN 20 FEET OF A YOUNG CHILD!!!

The book wasnt fun because it didn't rhyme as much as other Dr.suess book

See? Little kids *like* rhyming. It makes the book easier to remember and learn to 'read'.

Where the Wild Things Are

....- suddenly, those monsters were fleshed out for me, thanks to Sendak and his scary illustrations. This book creeps me out to this day. Those ugly monsters with their pointy little fangs, claws and horns are nasty looking. I have mentioned this book to my friends and they all agreed with me: this story is not for children.

What is with the traumatized adults? Seriously, those monsters didn't scare me when I was little, I loved that book almost as much as Green Eggs and Ham!

With all the reviews - I bought this book for my son. While the book had some good graphics, I believe the message is all wrong. He talks back to his mother and I think the message to kids is all wrong.

Graphics? Graphics? *smites* In books, they're called ILLUSTRATIONS.

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

i am giving this one star as I don't like the passage, and worse, the illustration : "and some are very, very, bad. Why are they sad and glad and bad? I do not know. Go ask your dad." The scene is a big red fish (mother or father is not known) with a scared little fish, the adult fish hand it up toward the face of the little fish with little lines to show action as if the child fish is going to get slapped across the face. Another child fish is watching and smiling as if to say "ha, ha, you are getting in trouble now".

I grew up with Dr. Suess. I also grew up with capital punishment, being hit by my parents as a common punishment method. Now that I am a parent I've decided to teach and instruct my children rather than just issuing punishment by the method of physically hitting them. Call me PC or whatever you want, it doesn't matter to me what you think of me. I am speaking from my heart. I realize this book was written in times when hitting children was seen as the norm in America as a normal punishment method. But times have changed. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics has a policy against hitting children as a form of punishment. I also don't like the old-fashioned labeling of a child as bad if they did one bad thing. The action they did was bad, but the child as a person is not bad. Any modern parenting book will explain that children should not be labeled as bad because it helps develop poor self-esteem.

I like the rest of the book and decided to just rip out that page!

You can't just explain "the book is wrong, now we know better?" I'd think that would be a more valuable lesson than "let's ignore all the stuff we don't like, and pretend it doesn't exist and never has!"

In the Night Kitchen

I just had to analyze this book for a banned book assiginment, and I found it utterly inappropiate for young children. First of all where does Sandak get off making Mickey naked when there is no reason why he can't be drawn with clothes on. Young children do not need to be exposed to Mickey's genitalia. This book should be removed from all bookshelves. Not only does it have gratuitous nudity it also promotes a religious viewpoint

Children don't need to know about their bodies, oh nonono. Religion is a vewwy bad thing.

I was very disturberd by this book. Should 3 grown men be looking at a naked little boy? I try to teach my children that this is bad. I would have liked the story, had my children not been looking at a anatomicly correctly drawn little boy. Not appropriate for this age group, unless you are ready to open discussions about childrens bodies.

And what's wrong with discussing bodies? Did I miss something?

I'm honestly a little surprised over the "nekkid" controversy. It's not like the boy is drawn in explicit detail! My daughter's seen boy babies getting their diapers changed, so the concept of a penis is HARDLY frightening/startling/damaging to her. Geez, lighten up people!

Also, for those who were complaining about the concept of cake for breakfast, why don't we consider how many American children get French toast, pancakes, donuts, poptarts, or sugar-coated cereals for breakfast? Hardly nutritionally superior to cake, so I'm not lying in bed at night obsessing about the poor nutritional messages this book is sending to my child. :-)

*giggles* Too true, too true.

15 or 20 years ago this was one of my favorite childhood books, if not my favorite of all time. Fast forward to the year 2000 where the proliferation of the Internet allows disparate people of all backgrounds to share our thoughts. How shocked was I to read phrases like "should be trashed"!? Now an adult (24 years old), I had to be reminded that the little boy in this book was naked, because I didn't remember. You know what I did remember? - a little boy flying around in an airplane made out of dough!

I am happy to see that as more reviews have been written, they are closer in thought to my own, but for those of you concerned about the nudity and so forth - get used to it. This is not the last naked person that your son or daughter is going to see

Again, too true. Hopefully, it isn't even the first, as they've presumably seen themselves. Oops. I'm not posting just the sillies. Sorry.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Everyone has bad days, some people more than others. The experiences related in this book hardly amount to a really bad day; and Alexander's response is always - "I think I'll move to Australia". It is one day out of this boy's life, and he makes that big a deal out of it. Likely he won't remember the incidents of that particular day a week afterwards. Another problem is that Alexander thinks all his problems could be solved if he could only move to Australia. In other words, he does not want to confront his problems and work them out. Is that what we want to teach kids?

That is why YOU read the book TO your child, and then you get to editorialize all you want, by saying "Do you think that's a good idea he has?" whenever the mood strikes.

Winnie the Pooh

Winnie the Pooh has to be one of the greatest all time books. The characters, the silly little things that they do, the adventures and misadventures they have, a honey loving bear and the way it is written. Then i woke up. If anyone thinks the idea of a bunch of animals poncing about a forest is a good idea then God help them. The characters wouldn't know how to be decent even if their stupid little worhtless lives depended on it. The honey loving bear is just stupid. A bear that likes honey HUH!!!! What complete and utter trash. It would some up why he is so fat though. The writer should have his hands chopped off for the execution of this poor idea. His idea altogether should warrant him a jail sentence and they should throw away the key. Actually better not someone might find it and let him out better dissolve it in some acid. If the person who invented reading and writing read this he would be spinning in his grave with disgust.

You mean!

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (I MISS THAT BOOK! WAAH!

It only has seven reviews? But they're all good, and well written, so....

Curious George

As a parent, however, I think this book could use a little updating. Some references are harmless, like referring to a record player (what's that?!), but others are what we would now consider politically incorrect or stereotypical: "fireman" instead of "firefighter", references to a "fat man", and "pretty nurse". A few characters, including George, smoke a pipe!

Yes, our children must never be exposed to... pipes!

This book is too scary for my whole family. My child is now traumatized and needs mental help. My wife thought the water colors were very cold and made her depressed. Customers should think before buying a book like this.

Nobody. Was. Ever. Hurt. By. A. Book. Get. Over. Yourself.

I read it and was disappointed. My 6-year-old cousin, Amanda Rebecca Jacinto, really thinks it is dumb! She said, "This book is boring, (my name)! Why did you buy me this? I wish you bought me 'Where the Wild Things Are'! Katelyn said it was cool." /i>

You can put your cousin's full name, but not your own? Nice.

Eloise

The book is out of date and inappropriate for children. I don't approve of adults smoking in the presence of children especially a NANNY!

Is the nanny ACTUALLY smoking? Or is it a PICTURE of a woman smoking?

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle

Publishers reprint famous books that sold well in the past; here, they're banking on our memory of the titles to keep these books profitable for them. They don't care, obviously, about their message. Reading them as adults, however, we should realize it's time to retire Betty McDonald's assumed value system. "Ramona" is flat-out annoying, but at least she teaches kids better expectations for relationships between men and women.

Question: Have *you* adopted the assumed gender bias in YOUR life? No? Then why should your children?

Pippi Longstocking

Also, the supernatural strength that Pippi exhibits creates an air of unreality and unattainability about her position -- okay for pure fantasy, I guess, but consider that the primary fallback role alternative for girls is Annika the Wimp. What happens to girls when they find that they can't bench-press a horse or hold two cops by their collars?

They grow up and realize that this is not the only book with girls in it?

Where the Sidewalk Ends/A Light in the Attic/Falling Up (after this, bedtime for Connie)

I don't think this book belongs in the 9-12 age group. I think it is for younger children, as other SIlverstein books are too. Some of the poems don't make any sence, and some aren't that great. I think 10+ dollars is to much money for this book.

Are you kidding me? $10 for a hardcover book is GOOD.

The deliberate misuse of language is delightful, but in many places the sloppy grammar and usage tends to mar an otherwise quality piece of writing. When I present a book to my children I want it to be correctly done because such books become models of language, and children accept them as proper. I don't want to mislead a child for example to believe that a given usage is correct just because it is in an otherwise delightful and well done work. In this book, pronouns turn up in the wrong case or do not agree with their antecedents and diction is totally incorrect, as in the use of "laying" for "lying." This is unfortunate and jarring to say the least. However, if you are not too picky about these things, I would still recommend the book. It is mischievous, original, utterly delightful in every other way.

*screams* Poetic license, dialect, have you NEVER heard of these concepts?

There's less to mock in this section, which is probably a good thing. But I did get some nostalgia going!

Edit: Am I the only one who caught my dreadful earlier typo "further adieu"?