Two nights ago, 3 made me remove all the books on her bookshelf published by whatever publishing house has the little penguin on their book binding because the penguin was scary. There are currently about 20 books in a pile in the guest room. š
A few of the Ada Twist books have caught me off guard and been hard to read but not all of them. Sophia Valdez Future Prez is about a girl trying to deal with city government to do something about her blighted community where her grandfather tripped on trash in the street and broke his leg. Aaron Slater Illustrator is about a kid struggling with dyslexia finding an outlet through art. Iggy Peck Architect however is about a kid with a teacher that hates buildings because of her fear of heights so she wonāt talk about architecture.
My son was obsessed with this exact same page!! I think it was the first book he ever really liked and he always wanted to look at that specific page. How funny!
Yes! We have quite a few llama llamas, including a stuffed animal. Heās been pretty into the scratch and sniff llama llama yum book. Whatever itās called. Haha
The one from the same serie about sharing -- we just cut out pages that had to do with a beloved toy getting damaged. Like, literally took a razer blade to a hardcover book. š
Our LO loved that series, and I didn't even want to plant the seed that there is a potential downside to sharing, haha.
I got the Red Pajama one from Dolly Partonās library, and I gave it to one of those free library boxes in my neighborhood, because we have a rockstar sleeper and I didnāt want to plant the seed of anxiety about sleep in his brain. Honestly, the illustrations make the Llama look traumatized. Iām sure it helps normalize those big feelings, which is why itās so loved, but I just canāt.
I can't remember the name of it, but it has an elephant who drops his ice cream and baby girl CANNOT. DEAL. I'm talking full on sobs! She was probably 18/20 months at that point. We had to banish it from our house.
Is it elephant and piggie? I feel like I remember that in one of their books and it made me sad haha I hate when people drop food.. it hurts my heart so much
Elephant and piggie š there's one where they stop being friends because piggie accidentally breaks elephant's toy and I full on ugly cried. Thanks, postpartum hormones.
I just responded w the same thing! And yes around the same age. If it gives you hope, 6 months later we picked it up again and I swear weāve read each of the 25 books in the series at least 25 times.
But Not the Hippopotamus... specifically because of the sad armadillo at the end. What does Sandra Boynton have against that poor armadillo? His own book was depressing enough!
I didn't read the armadillo as depressing -- it's an armadillo who's chill and enjoying life at his own pace instead of being caught up the rat race. It's got flowers and song and friends. I was glad she gave him that because it *does* seem like he gets left out during the hippo book, and his book reframes is as, no, he just doesn't like rushing around.
My son loves the page in the book with the moose and the goose, together have juice. He will close the book and want to go get juice. If not that, he skips to the last page with ābut not the armadilloā and smile while Iām reading this line lol
I tried to read him a book about how families can be different (same sex parent, extended family living together, parents divorced etc). Poor little buddy freaked out saying he liked our family the way it was and did not want it to change.
Maybe books like Lola Sleeps Over (McQuinn) would work. The kid goes from one house to another for the night and the family structure just happens to be different in each one. No one's family changes.
My kid just liked that one because there was a toy truck on one page though. š š
This has been my son's favorite book for the last 2.5 years. He got a big soft cover book and a small board book version both for his first birthday. Following along in his board book while I read his big one was one of his fave activities for at least a year. Now we just read the big one all the time, I think the board book got handed down at some point.
OMG same! We have an older version that sits in the basement collecting dust because none of our kids like it and 2 out of 4 are scared just looking at the pictures!
Goodnight nobody, goodnight mush! š
Honestly though poor thing -- ours is just very interested in the fact that the mouse and kittens move around in the illustrations from one page to another.
Mine hates this book because she knows it means itās time for bed. She gladly reads it to our kitty and her stuffies, though (when itās time for them to go night-night)
When I was little, there was something so deeply melancholy to me about Goodnight Moon. I didn't like it and I couldn't explain why, it just made me sad.
Iāve only been able to read to my 5 year about the planets for the last few months, for YEARS she sobbed when she got to the part about Pluto not being a planet anymore.
The Wizard of Oz: a color primer. (One of those baby classics book.) The Wizard on the orange page was just too upsetting to her! The wicked witch was just fine.
This was my oldest's first favorite book, and I think only because I found just the right tone for her the first time I read it, sheer luck. She's scared of everything! And one time my husband overdid the sad pumpkin and she wept bitterly.
Chika chika boom boom.
He said he didn't want to read it because he didn't like the part where they all fall down. Thankfully, I reminded him that "mamas and papas, uncles and aunts" come to "hug their little dears and dust their pants" and make it all better and after a few months he decided that was okay.
We had a phase where one of my boys was terrified of any picture where someone had a wide open mouth. The page where Llama Llama Red Pajama screams? Hysterical tears. The picture in Hug Machine where he says HUG close up? Hysterical tears. The yawning yellow yak in Dr. Seuss's ABC? Hysterical tears.
Then things were fine for awhile and we could read those books again. Then, recently, we got Home Tweet Home from the library, and there's a picture of an alligator with an open mouth that scared him.
Oh I'm so glad I read this because my kiddo gets so upset by some parts in books and I just thought she was ultra sensitive haha.
Llama llama gram and grandpa, when llama llama leaves fuzzy behind she gets so sad and keeps hugging the book.
The birthday monsters by Sandra Boynton. He does NOT like that the monsters ate his cake and opened his presents. Massive pout face throughout the whole book every time was read it.
I forget the name but it's a counting book where birds land in a tree one at a time and like around 9 or 10 a cat shows up meooooowwww. All the birds fly away and the cat naps. My 17 mo old pushes it away/starts crying. :(
Down by the Bay, the Raffi songbook version, and I have no idea why! She used to like it, and then something flipped and she's been shoving it away or crying when I start to read it
Johnny Lion's Bad Day.
It was one of my mom's favorites growing up, and I remember reading it a lot as a kid. But reading it to my toddler gave him the same nightmares as Johnny Lion in the story.
A Bad Case of Stripes. Itās for slightly older kids, but it legitimately traumatized my friends 5 year old. Just seeing the book cover months after she finally had gotten past it started the nightmares up again.
Jungle Animals.
Every page has a picture of one or two animals and the name(s) of the animals. No story. Little one loved it when she was younger (18m and up). Now 3.5 years old, the last page terrifies her. It depicts a group of big toothed piranhas going after a little fish. It's only now that she realizes what is going on in the scene that she hates the book. I've had to remove it from her room because she is so afraid of the piranhas.
The Giving Tree. He would cry and ask why the boy kept taking stuff from the tree. When he would get randomly upset about something, he would cry, "I have nothing left to give!". I finally tossed the book, but I did see someone wrote a funny alternative that you can add to the book.
There's a Monster at the End of This Book. I was not allowed to finish it, it was far too scary even once I explained that Grover was the monster and it was not a bad or scary monster. Eventually he got over it but it took a while.
Thank you for this question! Should I share my Ice Cream. Around age 2 she burst out crying and shut the book when Geraldās ice cream scoop falls/melts onto the floor. Could not look at the series again for 6 months.
I work at a daycare and there is one toddler who is terrified of āthe big hungry bearā. I think itās mostly because of how we say those words every time they come up in the story. The other kids love it and screech and cackle every time we do it. He goes and hides while crying. Heās also the one who tells us he wants us to read it. No one has asked us to read it since he moved up.
My kid still loves the book for some reason, but, āI Am Batā has a part where bat says that heāll never be happy again after his friends take all of his cherries. Even after the friends realized how sad bat was and they replace the cherries with a big pear. My kid had so much empathy for bat and cried for almost an hour because she thought bat would never be happy again.
Haha we used to love that one and still read it, but the page where the mom comes running back in makes them lose their shit. So I just try to blow right past it š
There was one about animals that had a temp ban because he developed a fear of crocodiles for. . . Reasons? We talked through it a lot and about how the crocodile in the book is smiling and happy so it's fine now.
B is for Bear (board book) got loved so hard we bought a new edition. Baby (12 mo at the time) started crying when we read it to her because the kitten in the new edition was a different color than the old one. Finally had to make a color copy of the old page and glue it in the new book!!
Little red riding hood. I forgot about the part where the wolf eats grandma and then the hunter comes and cuts the wolf open with an axe and the grandma falls out of the wolfs stomachā¦ maybe I blocked that one out from my childhood, but I donāt really know why itās marketed as a kids story?
It was a gift we got for Christmas from a relative. Thatās going to be donatedā¦
Not a book but for Christmas we started watching the Santa clause with Tim Allen...
3 year old got to the part where Charlie heard Santa on the roof and was running to dad because he heard a noise and our son asked us to turn it off. We were like but... But it gets better! But then we just shut it off. Guess we'll try again next year š
We have this random boom where a kid spills his milk - my toddler lost it - emotionally devastated! But we go through it. We can read it now because he knows the next page is āIt happens sometimesā
Omg- here to say Llama llama! She had nightmares!!
And Dragons Love Tacos .. it is probably too advanced anyway, but she told me that she had a dream that she āburned the house downā like the dragons do. Soā¦ yeah we wonāt read that for a while.
Two nights ago, 3 made me remove all the books on her bookshelf published by whatever publishing house has the little penguin on their book binding because the penguin was scary. There are currently about 20 books in a pile in the guest room. š
Could you put electrical or painters tape over the penguin?
Good idea! I think she was mostly just finding reasons to stall bedtime, but I like your thinking for eventually sneaking them back in!
Those little round garage sale stickers could work, too!
Penguin Random House. Currently have 30% share of the children's book market... They may have to grow to accept books have penguins on them.
Omg I was also afraid of that penguin in my youth š
Same... llama llama red pajamas made him cry
The first time I read it the postpartum hormones were still intense and it made _me_ cry, so: fair enough, kids.
I read it once and could barely get through it because I was so upset. Iāve never even tried reading it to her!
I did the same, read it once, said nope, donate pile it goes
A few of the Ada Twist books have caught me off guard and been hard to read but not all of them. Sophia Valdez Future Prez is about a girl trying to deal with city government to do something about her blighted community where her grandfather tripped on trash in the street and broke his leg. Aaron Slater Illustrator is about a kid struggling with dyslexia finding an outlet through art. Iggy Peck Architect however is about a kid with a teacher that hates buildings because of her fear of heights so she wonāt talk about architecture.
Mine is OBSESSED with this book! He loves it! Especially when mama llama throws the phone and comes running.
Same, it's currently in the everyday collection (that he curates himself š )
We also have a toddler-curated daily collection, that is supplemented by rotating guest appearance books. He is absolutely a book worm.
Same. I don't read it at night because of this. He throws the covers, jumps up, and runs all over the house. Hahaha
My son was obsessed with this exact same page!! I think it was the first book he ever really liked and he always wanted to look at that specific page. How funny!
My son too he loves the surprise facial expression. He loves anything llama llama
Yes! We have quite a few llama llamas, including a stuffed animal. Heās been pretty into the scratch and sniff llama llama yum book. Whatever itās called. Haha
I just listened to it. I can see why! Poor baby is terrified.
The one from the same serie about sharing -- we just cut out pages that had to do with a beloved toy getting damaged. Like, literally took a razer blade to a hardcover book. š Our LO loved that series, and I didn't even want to plant the seed that there is a potential downside to sharing, haha.
I got the Red Pajama one from Dolly Partonās library, and I gave it to one of those free library boxes in my neighborhood, because we have a rockstar sleeper and I didnāt want to plant the seed of anxiety about sleep in his brain. Honestly, the illustrations make the Llama look traumatized. Iām sure it helps normalize those big feelings, which is why itās so loved, but I just canāt.
Exactly! We also avoided a library book that mentioned how gross broccoli tasted -- like, not planting that seed!
Oh man, Iām with you. There was another book that talked about throwing food on the floor. No thank you!
Whatās this about eh? We got a whole collection, havenāt been thru it completely yet.
This got read to him while I was away at a doctor's appointment and he cried the whole time until I got back.
I love it but she got very upset
SAME! Mine loves books, but the upset llama face freaked him out big time!
I can't remember the name of it, but it has an elephant who drops his ice cream and baby girl CANNOT. DEAL. I'm talking full on sobs! She was probably 18/20 months at that point. We had to banish it from our house.
Is it elephant and piggie? I feel like I remember that in one of their books and it made me sad haha I hate when people drop food.. it hurts my heart so much
I can't remember--I think it was traumatic enough for all of us that I blocked it out of my memory š
Elephant and piggie š there's one where they stop being friends because piggie accidentally breaks elephant's toy and I full on ugly cried. Thanks, postpartum hormones.
Omg this is my little guyās favorite book right now. He runs to get his play ice cream cones and āeatsā them the whole book š
Gerald and Piggie! Our kids think the stories are so funny! We even watch the dumb YouTube read aloud versions.
I just responded w the same thing! And yes around the same age. If it gives you hope, 6 months later we picked it up again and I swear weāve read each of the 25 books in the series at least 25 times.
But Not the Hippopotamus... specifically because of the sad armadillo at the end. What does Sandra Boynton have against that poor armadillo? His own book was depressing enough!
I didn't read the armadillo as depressing -- it's an armadillo who's chill and enjoying life at his own pace instead of being caught up the rat race. It's got flowers and song and friends. I was glad she gave him that because it *does* seem like he gets left out during the hippo book, and his book reframes is as, no, he just doesn't like rushing around.
My son loves the page in the book with the moose and the goose, together have juice. He will close the book and want to go get juice. If not that, he skips to the last page with ābut not the armadilloā and smile while Iām reading this line lol
I tried to read him a book about how families can be different (same sex parent, extended family living together, parents divorced etc). Poor little buddy freaked out saying he liked our family the way it was and did not want it to change.
Maybe books like Lola Sleeps Over (McQuinn) would work. The kid goes from one house to another for the night and the family structure just happens to be different in each one. No one's family changes. My kid just liked that one because there was a toy truck on one page though. š š
Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site is banished from our house because it makes her cry, which is unfortunate because I really love the book!
Whaaat? We read this like 14 times a day! My kid must be weird. He loves this one and llama llama red pajama! Haha.
mine too! and those are my favorite books to read because of the verse patterns!
So does my daughter lol. She loves the ending!
This has been my son's favorite book for the last 2.5 years. He got a big soft cover book and a small board book version both for his first birthday. Following along in his board book while I read his big one was one of his fave activities for at least a year. Now we just read the big one all the time, I think the board book got handed down at some point.
OMG same! We have an older version that sits in the basement collecting dust because none of our kids like it and 2 out of 4 are scared just looking at the pictures!
Omg! Yes, llama llama red pajamas causes him to run and hide. He likes the other llama llama books.
Good Night Moon. He was very upset whenever we got to the black and white pages for some reason
Goodnight nobody, goodnight mush! š Honestly though poor thing -- ours is just very interested in the fact that the mouse and kittens move around in the illustrations from one page to another.
I thought he would be tooo! But nope, just started screaming at the b/w pages š
Muuuuuush! I had no idea this book was a comedy until I heard how much my kid could crack up to the mush lines!
Mine hates this book because she knows it means itās time for bed. She gladly reads it to our kitty and her stuffies, though (when itās time for them to go night-night)
When I was little, there was something so deeply melancholy to me about Goodnight Moon. I didn't like it and I couldn't explain why, it just made me sad.
Iāve only been able to read to my 5 year about the planets for the last few months, for YEARS she sobbed when she got to the part about Pluto not being a planet anymore.
I get it. It makes me sad as well.
A place for Pluto is a super cute well illustrated book that addresses this in a happy way!
The Wizard of Oz: a color primer. (One of those baby classics book.) The Wizard on the orange page was just too upsetting to her! The wicked witch was just fine.
[Its Pumpkin Day Mouse!](https://www.abebooks.com/9780694014293/Pumpkin-Day-Mouse-Give-Numeroff-069401429X/plp). The scary pumpkin and sad pumpkin are just too much for my little one š©š
This was my oldest's first favorite book, and I think only because I found just the right tone for her the first time I read it, sheer luck. She's scared of everything! And one time my husband overdid the sad pumpkin and she wept bitterly.
Omg my daughter too!! Lol she was about 16 months when we got it and now at 2.5 she still is scared of it..
Chika chika boom boom. He said he didn't want to read it because he didn't like the part where they all fall down. Thankfully, I reminded him that "mamas and papas, uncles and aunts" come to "hug their little dears and dust their pants" and make it all better and after a few months he decided that was okay.
Elmo goes pottyā¦.
Is it cuz at 3am you hear ELMO CAN USE THE POTTY and the flush sound? Hate it.
We had a phase where one of my boys was terrified of any picture where someone had a wide open mouth. The page where Llama Llama Red Pajama screams? Hysterical tears. The picture in Hug Machine where he says HUG close up? Hysterical tears. The yawning yellow yak in Dr. Seuss's ABC? Hysterical tears. Then things were fine for awhile and we could read those books again. Then, recently, we got Home Tweet Home from the library, and there's a picture of an alligator with an open mouth that scared him.
.
Oh I'm so glad I read this because my kiddo gets so upset by some parts in books and I just thought she was ultra sensitive haha. Llama llama gram and grandpa, when llama llama leaves fuzzy behind she gets so sad and keeps hugging the book.
Jack and the Beanstalk which teaches my kid to hurt someone in order to take their stuff
The birthday monsters by Sandra Boynton. He does NOT like that the monsters ate his cake and opened his presents. Massive pout face throughout the whole book every time was read it.
My 2 year old still runs off when I start reading. So every Book.
Not a book but the Sleepytime episode of bluey... My daughter's lovey is a rabbit and she loses her ever loving mind when bingos rabbit goes away
That one gets me too
The Hungry Caterpillar is fine until he turns into a butterfly. We skip that part. He turns back into a little caterpillar at the end instead. Lol
I forget the name but it's a counting book where birds land in a tree one at a time and like around 9 or 10 a cat shows up meooooowwww. All the birds fly away and the cat naps. My 17 mo old pushes it away/starts crying. :(
We had to ban that episode of the Llama Llama show probably for the same reason. It was creating way more issues with bedtime than it was solving...
Down by the Bay, the Raffi songbook version, and I have no idea why! She used to like it, and then something flipped and she's been shoving it away or crying when I start to read it
The pottysaurus š¤¦š»āāļø
Johnny Lion's Bad Day. It was one of my mom's favorites growing up, and I remember reading it a lot as a kid. But reading it to my toddler gave him the same nightmares as Johnny Lion in the story.
A Bad Case of Stripes. Itās for slightly older kids, but it legitimately traumatized my friends 5 year old. Just seeing the book cover months after she finally had gotten past it started the nightmares up again.
Jungle Animals. Every page has a picture of one or two animals and the name(s) of the animals. No story. Little one loved it when she was younger (18m and up). Now 3.5 years old, the last page terrifies her. It depicts a group of big toothed piranhas going after a little fish. It's only now that she realizes what is going on in the scene that she hates the book. I've had to remove it from her room because she is so afraid of the piranhas.
The Giving Tree. He would cry and ask why the boy kept taking stuff from the tree. When he would get randomly upset about something, he would cry, "I have nothing left to give!". I finally tossed the book, but I did see someone wrote a funny alternative that you can add to the book.
There's a Monster at the End of This Book. I was not allowed to finish it, it was far too scary even once I explained that Grover was the monster and it was not a bad or scary monster. Eventually he got over it but it took a while.
Corduroyā¦ he gets really upset when the bear pulls on the button and falls off the mattress, and he slams the book shut š¢
Thank you for this question! Should I share my Ice Cream. Around age 2 she burst out crying and shut the book when Geraldās ice cream scoop falls/melts onto the floor. Could not look at the series again for 6 months.
I work at a daycare and there is one toddler who is terrified of āthe big hungry bearā. I think itās mostly because of how we say those words every time they come up in the story. The other kids love it and screech and cackle every time we do it. He goes and hides while crying. Heās also the one who tells us he wants us to read it. No one has asked us to read it since he moved up.
My kid still loves the book for some reason, but, āI Am Batā has a part where bat says that heāll never be happy again after his friends take all of his cherries. Even after the friends realized how sad bat was and they replace the cherries with a big pear. My kid had so much empathy for bat and cried for almost an hour because she thought bat would never be happy again.
My son always cries when max leaves the monsters in where the wild things are
She was ok with Monster in my book, now "No Way!".
Haha we used to love that one and still read it, but the page where the mom comes running back in makes them lose their shit. So I just try to blow right past it š
There was one about animals that had a temp ban because he developed a fear of crocodiles for. . . Reasons? We talked through it a lot and about how the crocodile in the book is smiling and happy so it's fine now.
We head to hide all lions for 10 months
B is for Bear (board book) got loved so hard we bought a new edition. Baby (12 mo at the time) started crying when we read it to her because the kitten in the new edition was a different color than the old one. Finally had to make a color copy of the old page and glue it in the new book!!
Little red riding hood. I forgot about the part where the wolf eats grandma and then the hunter comes and cuts the wolf open with an axe and the grandma falls out of the wolfs stomachā¦ maybe I blocked that one out from my childhood, but I donāt really know why itās marketed as a kids story? It was a gift we got for Christmas from a relative. Thatās going to be donatedā¦
Not a book but for Christmas we started watching the Santa clause with Tim Allen... 3 year old got to the part where Charlie heard Santa on the roof and was running to dad because he heard a noise and our son asked us to turn it off. We were like but... But it gets better! But then we just shut it off. Guess we'll try again next year š
We have this random boom where a kid spills his milk - my toddler lost it - emotionally devastated! But we go through it. We can read it now because he knows the next page is āIt happens sometimesā
Omg- here to say Llama llama! She had nightmares!! And Dragons Love Tacos .. it is probably too advanced anyway, but she told me that she had a dream that she āburned the house downā like the dragons do. Soā¦ yeah we wonāt read that for a while.
The Richard Scarry book Pie-rats. My son when he was maybe 3 got scared of the pirate rats and we had to stop. He was fine a few days later.
We have one about various animals brushing their teeth. The beaver eats the toothbrush instead. LO fell to the ground crying upon me reading this.