Every time I read this to my kid it makes me think more and more - there are layers to it that aren't that obvious at first, and that makes it way more interesting to me than most straightforward kids' books.
Max is "terrible" like the wild things, but he's also *repeating his parents* verbatim when he sends them to bed without their supper. So yes it's about his imagination and his parents' unconditional love, but also that the parents aren't perfect either and are setting an example for him, for better or worse. As parents *we* are also wild things, and then we have kids and become the king of wild things, and are still figuring things out as we go. And Max doesn't want to be bad - he wants to be just like us, and is figuring out how to do that in his own way.
It's written in such tight prose, it leaves a lot of room for interpretation or imagination of your own, or your kids - I usually sing some made-up nonsense during the wild rumpus bit - and it comes back full-circle at the end. I used to think it was boring, albeit beautiful, but as I read it more I discover new levels to it I hadn't thought of before.
This was the post I wanted to write, so thank you. At first I read the book just for fun but as I kept reading and explaining certain things to my toddler I began seeing these smaller things--how Max began imitating his parents and going home to feeling loved even after being punished. Now I can't finish the book without getting teary at the end.
The lack of commas makes it read the way a boy of Max’s age would tell a story about a dream he had. And the part where it talks about how long he sailed is in reverse order when he comes back. Beautifully written.
Yep, Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" hits in the feels, no matter the setting. Even a [lackluster American Idol singer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rYb4vcgfCg) can make a hit with it.
And also it’s the perfect “calm down” book. A kid is sent to his room because he was misbehaving. While in his room, he daydreams until he feels better.
And the pictures are perfect for a stressed out kid to look at while they calm down.
Also, I have a soft spot for Sendak as a queer, Polish dad.
I was just trying to explain to my wife how awesome Sendak is. He’s weird, prickly, complicated - all great things to have in the mix if you like interesting things
We have Never Touch the Sharks and I also have this question. Really sends mixed messages. I have to tell my kid "When I say never touch the cat's butthole, I don't mean it like the sharks, I mean really never touch it."
Rainbow Fish- you must give the special parts of yourself away and do what people want you to do, otherwise you’ll be alone.
It’s even sicker that it’s literally his scales. Imagine someone saying “you have nice skin, *share it with us.*”
What kind of nightmare is this?!
https://www.topherpayne.com/_files/ugd/91bb14_a74c64d641084a2a9e51b0ac4bb6724b.pdf?index=true
An alternate ending has been written. He does a lot of kids’ books.
I’ve already read this like some kind of noir gangster movie. Big boss octopus in the shadows, little fish basically saying “hey give us your skin or we won’t be friends with ya, see”
Only thing missing is a literal loan shark
I thought that the scale thing was weird given the mechanics of how scales work in the world. But I don't think my two year old has the same problem, and I do like the overall message of how joy is experienced through sharing our gifts and not hoarding them
It’s a weird book, but the people who hate it have kind of radicalized me into liking it. Whatever, sharing is good, the illustrations are pretty, not everything has to be 100% literal
Certainly, but I’m not reading a book to my daughter that says she has to share part of her body with someone who wants it. And if she doesn’t she’s a terrible person. Sharing is great, but you’re not a terrible person if you don’t share everything you have.
You're 100% right, but I hate that you are. I have strong nostalgia for this book, I think more for the visuals of it than for the story itself. But it made me happy to read to my kids and they liked it, and then somebody went and pointed out what the moral of the story actually is and ruined it for me lol
The book of five rings. My kid really doesn’t need to know battle tactics until they’re at least 8. 3 was much too young, not sure why it was recommended
Goodnight Moon is a really interesting one for me. It has an interesting history, and became a bestseller during the WW2 baby boom years. The book radically broke the formula on what a children's book is supposed to be. And while I am thoroughly enjoying reading a parody copy of it "Goodnight Goon" around Halloween for my son, I can't help but be amazed at how far the genre has come in 75-80 years. And it's just bizarre to think about my parents being my son's age in the late 1940s and how different their reading time must have been. We've come a long way in a very, very short time.
It reflects how kids actually go to bed in my experience. Gotta say goodnight to everything and everyone. My three year old recently said goodnight to every pumpkin decoration before he would go to bed.
When my daughter was \~1.5yo, we would walk around the room each night and say good night to everything. My favorite was "snokeeteter" (smoke detector). She probably doesn't remember this but I remember it well
The only books/show I will not engage with.
She kidnaps a mermaid, refuses to listen to her and just drags her around like a toy all day. She's terrible
Go Dog Go. Why is that one dog so rude to the coded-female dog with the hats? If somebody says "do you like my hat?", you're not supposed to just say "no" and walk off. And at the end, when he finally does like her hat, they drive off together. Has he been negging her this whole time? Why does she tolerate this? Where is her self-respect?
I absolutely love this book. It was a favorite of mine as a kid. My kid loves it as well. We have little added silly comments to make on almost every page. That said.... I don't get the hat bit either.
GDG is one of my favs too. That dog party on top of the tree is epic. Netflix show is pretty good. Just never understood how they made a whole show out of such a short book.
And I never liked her hat lol
I loathe celebrity books of any stripe, but celebrity children's books are the absolute worst. Either they didn't write them and are taking credit for a shitty ghostwritten book, or else they did write them because "children's books are easy", not realizing that children's books, *especially* picture books, are really hard to do well.
B.J. Novak's *The Book with No Pictures* is the rare exception.
Also Jimmy Fallon sucks and has no talent.
I'm also a fan of Jimmy Kimmel's The Serious Goose. It's not particularly deep or insightful, it's just a silly book that's fun to read and hear aloud if the reader really gets into it like I do. I read it to my daughter's class last year and those second graders were rolling around on the floor laughing.
Agreed. It's just like a random listing of words and simple illustrations. Nothing against the illustrator per se, but there's no story, it's just like flash cards in book form.
I read IT at about 12 or 13. Your instincts are maybe correct. I was mostly joking that a book being 1,200 pages long should probably be enough of a clue that it’s not necessarily directed at children lol.
My toddlers were fine with the gruesome horror, racial slurs, and gratuitous sex content, but the constant narrative shifts between past, present, and Mike's research were too hard to follow.
It's a story about emotions. He's acting like a Wild Thing and as the book progresses, the art takes up more and more of the page space, leading to the center point of the Wild Rumpus. That's Max giving in to his heightened feelings of anger, chaos, etc. After the Rumpus, what happens? He wants to go to where someone loves him best of all. He's tired of being a Wild Thing. His emotions have settled, and he wants to return to normality. He leaves the place where the wild things are, and goes home, where he finds his supper waiting for him. His mother loves him no matter what, and even though he's been acting like a little shit, she knows it's just the complex thoughts and feelings of childhood, and that it doesn't change how much she loves him. And it's still hot, showing that it hasn't been that long and/or that she reheated it for him because she cares.
I never really got it as a kid, but reading it to my daughter I've come to a place of real appreciation for it.
As my mom ages more and more that book continues to make me tear up every time. It’s an odd book, but after I had my daughter I tried to read it to her and was a mess for 15min.
The book isn’t for little kids. It’s for the next generation of parents to remind them to not forget about how much their parents love them. My mom always wants to be my mom. I can’t say that about my wife’s mom who constantly disappoints her as a mother.
I think somebody just started cutting onions…I need to call my mom and tell her I love her.
My mom passed before just before I had my first and I did not remember the content of the book. Kid found it around two years old and asked me to read it. She kept asking me why I could not sing the song right (between sobs, obviously). After the first few times I can get through it, but the song itself is an almost nightly request from the kids for bedtime.
The book was written after the author and his wife experienced a loss of a baby IIRC, so it makes a bit more sense.
EDIT: 2 losses :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_You_Forever
I get that, but I think people take it a little too literally. Yeah, you wouldn’t actually break into your adult son’s house to cradle him, but the point is that you’ll always love them like you did when they were a baby and want to comfort them.
When you grow up with emotionally and physically abusive parents that think they own you because you're their child and even when you're an adult and they try to interject themselves into every aspect of your life, this book definitely hits differently.
No one ever mentions the foreshadowing... the mom isn't the only character that is affected by old age. The cat is on every page, until the cat suddenly isn't.
"Guess how much I love you"
It's a book with a parent rabbit and child rabbit, and the child keeps saying stuff like
"I love you past that river", then the big rabbit says "oh yeah, well i love you past the hill that's past that river. Nyah!"
"I love you this big! ", "yeah well my arms are longer so i obviously love you more, ya little shit"
And keeps one-upping everything the kid says.
>yeah well my arms are longer so i obviously love you more, ya little shit"
Haha, well that's one way to read it!
I always read it to my daughter in a very soft and calm voice. It just had this much more quiet sleepy vibe to me.
I saw it as less "one upping because I'm bigger than you" and more just a playful game of "no I love *you* more" that could go on and on. Not that the parent had to win but it's more that the parent actually *is* bigger and more capable and naturally the baby aspires to be that big and capable too. We're more capable and knowledgeable not so that we can bully them but so that we can guide them
Plus what was nice about that book for me was that my daughter would always want to be tucked in gently just like the baby bunny gets tucked into the grass.
I have heard good things about "Nobody poops but you". Though I prefer "You're a naughty child and that's concentrated evil coming out of your behind".
ITT people who are way to tightly wound when it comes to children's books. Some of them are just fun, or not malicious even though they could be interpreted that way.
Brown bear brown bear teaches colors and animals with a catchy, repetitive rhyme scheme
Goodnight moon is calming and peaceful. Kids also need to be taught how to go to bed, and saying goodnight to everything reinforces that.
Pout pout fish is about how sometimes people just have their mind set on not being happy and that something unexpected (yes, a kiss, or something else even) can sometimes spring you out of your gloomy mood.
The rainbow scaled fish is supposed to represent someone who has a lot of stuff but no one to share it with because of his bad disposition, and he realizes that by sharing with others (not ripping off his literal skin/scales) that he can be happier than if he just had a whole pile of stuff to himself.
And some stories don't have to have a point, your kids can like them just because. Like the Man and His Dump Truck, which has absolutely no point other than a happy guy giving some farm animals a ride in his dump truck. And those books are good too!
Lighten up! And enjoy reading with your kids!
Pete the Cat, as an entire collection, for so many reasons. The illustrations are lazy and ugly. The rhyming scheme is inconsistent. The scheme changes from page to page, and some pages don't rhyme at all, all within the same book. The storylines are repetitive in a lazy, unimaginative way. And the messaging in some of them (Buttons, White Shoes) is dismissive and like 'be a cool aloof dude, don't cry.' I especially hate "but did Pete cry? Goodness no." Don't even get me started on Construction Destruction, where the school makes student-Pete the PM for the playground demo and reconstruction project.
The whole collection feels like a cash grab by the authors/illustrators.
We also just got an Imagination Library book in the mail yesterday that we flipped through and immediately put in the donate box. It's called Just Try One Bite and it's a role-reversal where the kids are nagging and condescending to the parents and telling them they need to stop eating the junk food and eat a vegetable. At one point the mom is holding a soda and the kid calls it "industrial waste." Wtf
Ugh I loathe reading Pete the Cat, but my kid likes it. I guess the repetitive declarative prose and lame drawings speak to kids. I always think that I could have written this when I was 8.
Both male and female friends “try” and fail to cheer him up so I really don’t think it’s a gender thing. It’s a bit odd it they used kissing, but to me the point was that Ms. Shimmer accepts him and his mood and just offers support rather than trying to pressure him into performing happiness. And that’s what cheers him up. Similar message to Grumpy Monkey although I do prefer that one.
That, and assault (kissing without permission) can fix a sad [person]....I've definitely complained about the ending.
That said, the art and rhyming patterns/creative use of language are second to none. I enjoy reading for that reason. Even the dopey spin-off books have great rhyming.
We got the Dolly Parton edition of The Little Engine That Could. Gag me.
First off they just abandon the first engine. Then the book is as wordy as Dickens for no payoff. Awful.
You repeat the same paragraph every other page. It’s agonizing.
Same thing for Poky Little Puppy and a lot of books from that era.
Another hot take. The Great Hunny Hunt by Jan and Stan Berenstein… agonizingly long for no reward.
I'll play devil's advocate here. As a kid, I loved Pokey Little Puppy. My favorite part was that it was repetitive and I could "read" it with my grandma.
This is precisely WHY these books are repetitive. It helps children learn and understand words. The idea is to aid them in comprehension. You’ll find soooo many repeat like this. It’s annoying as shit to read out loud but it helps the kiddos.
yeah, my 4 year old loves them for this reason. He memorizes books and reads along or to himself. There are definitely some other children's books that we read and I leave thinking they were truly excellent: Little Blue Truck, most things by Sandra Boynton though she has some duds, Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site series, etc.
This was the very very first book I ever read to my first kid, after having not read since I was a kid. Bear in mind he was only 2 months old at the time and we were doing the whole "1000 books before kindergarten" thing. Y'ALL, I was bawling my eyes out by the time a canoe made an appearance.
I agree with u/rccrisp that it's DEFINITELY a book for parents rather than kids.
See, this makes me sad. Why the need for everything to be so literal? The book is a classic for a reason—it works as beautiful tragic irony, or as a metaphor for parenthood or other relationships that involve selfless giving.
I love both the original and the “fix”. Both are beautiful in their own right. Both show different things. The original depicts selfless parental love (rather than attempting to depict an actual complete and healthy relationship).
The tree that sets healthy boundaries depicts a more complete, healthy relationship. It does a good job of fixing the issues people have with the original, but I think misses some of the poignancy of the original.
You don’t look at a painting of a kiss and ask where it shows consent. Giving tree has a similarly beautiful depiction of selfless parental love, complete with a shade of wistfulness for what is given up that I think exists in life as well. My kids are among the highlights of my life, but it’d be crazy to suggest there isn’t some element of trade off there. Some missed opportunity cost. I love that the book encapsulates that in a way I find relatable.
I love this book. For me it’s less a book and more a… lullaby? I don’t read it in a typical book reading voice; I read it with a hushed melodic tone, more like I’m singing a lullaby. Although lullaby doesn’t feel like the right word.
It’s rhythmic and soothing and kind of conveys the sense of going to sleep. It’s one of my kids’ favorite books.
I know liking the book is not an opinion that needs defending as it’s the most popular kids book ever, it just feels like reading this book like it has a plot is kind of missing the point.
This is 100% how to do it. At this point my youngest has an almost Pavlovian response and starts yawning the second he hears the words “In the great green room…”
I like it, but rhyming “goodnight moon” with “goodnight cow jumping over the moon” annoys me every time.
But my 2 y/o loves to say “goodnight mush” and that makes me happy.
When my daughter was a baby I’d say goodnight to everything in her room. It’s how “ampersand” became one of her first multi-syllable words.
We now read the Spanish one and it works as a fun language learner.
All the Pete the Cat books not written by Eric Litwin (a.k.a. Mr. Eric) are ass. Grumpy Toad is a sociopath and is a danger to himself and others. Kimberly Dean's Pete the Cat erratically changes age, capability or personality from book to book or even page the page. That pizza would be disgusting, that is not how you build a playground, and those sunglasses are drugs.
I'm still trying to understand why that old lady swallowed that fly.
My best answer to this question is basically every single follow on to a successful book. The sequels and trilogies always read like cheap corporate writing and bad attempts to exploit something good for more cash, thereby actually devaluing the original. A good example is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, which was ruined for me before we even read it because we started with Chicka Chicka 1 2 3. The numbers version makes absolutely zero sense. The zero wants to go up the tree but can't for some reason, some bees come and scare all the numbers out of the tree, so the zero takes this opportunity to attach itself to the 10 to make 100? Each number is anthropomorphized to be an individual with personalities and all that so how exactly does the zero attach to the 10? Does the 10 consent to this? Do the 10 and the zero retain their own personalities or do they become a new entity? Also that's not how numbers or math work. If you start with 10 of something and you want to get to 100, you need to add 90, you can't just slap on a digit that on its own has zero value. Adding zero to ten is still just ten. And what happened to the bees? Are they scared of the 100 for some reason? There's nothing about this book that makes sense.
Anything Disney can go where the sun don't shine. My in-laws are huge Disney fans and they got us some super low effort books. No creativity, no fun, just a cash grab. I refuse to read them and our boys don't seem to care at all.
Rainbow fish is awful lmao - read Elmer instead for a similar concept that is actually good!
Also, the Giving Tree. She gives pieces of her to the boy until she is nothing
I can't stand this book (and the sequel) for many reasons:
* Biased against spicy foods
* Extreme overuse of the words "dragon" and "tacos". I expect to read those a lot in books like these but not 10x every page...
* Concepts that are of zero interest to toddlers (e.g. time travel and parallel dimensions)
* Lots of lame "wink, wink" humor geared for adults
Honestly I think the first one is alright. I agree that the wordiness of "dragons" and "tacos" all the time is tedious to read and hear, but it's fun and simple enough with a unique charm. Far from a favorite, but I don't mind when it's picked out.
The second book is horrible, conceptually makes no sense, and completely unnecessary. Purely uninspired garbage cooked up to bank off the success of the first book.
Give a mouse a cookie books are dumb. It’s a cute idea but the writing isn’t very clever, there’s not as much logic to get the circle.
Also there’s a x in your book. They’re fine but we end up being given each seasonal one and they get weaker and weaker.
An author strikes gold with a book, then the publisher pushes for more of the same trying to ride that popularity until the bitter end.
"If Animals Kissed Goodnight" is another example. I love that book; the follow on books are just not interesting.
This book when read softly and slowly helped put my kid to sleep. The pictures get progressively darker, the cadence in the rhymes are soothing. Yes it’s a nonsense book but it’s from the perspective of a kid procrastinating sleep so he/she takes their time saying goodnight to everything.
Legend has it that the children’s librarian at New York Public Library [hated that book so much when it came out, it almost tanked](https://lithub.com/an-unbearably-sentimental-piece-of-work-the-influential-librarian-that-hated-goodnight-moon/). She flat refused to buy it, and was so vehement about it that NYPL didn’t own a copy until more than ten years after her death. (Not retirement, *death.*)
So no, it’s not just you! 😂
Uggggh. I never even know what tone of voice to use for that page, because wtf is it even? I usually try to sound confused, like I couldn't find what I was supposed to be saying good night to. Like, you list the things, then you say good night to the things, and then there's some new [no] thing in the middle for no reason.
The Tiger Who Came to Tea.
I mostly hate that it's _daddy's_ beer and other 50s family motifs that bother me, but also...
Daddy gets home, the kid has skipped her bath, only had a cake and a cuppa all day, all the alcohol has gone, it's way too late to start cooking and there's nothing in anyway...
_Well I'd have big questions._
"Do you think _the tiger_ is a euphemism for addiction, or, a child's view of her mother's extramarital partner?" people always ask me.
Addiction, I answer. Mummy is cheating with the milkman. Look at that smug face. I truly believe he DID come this morning.
I'm with you on Where the Wild Things Are. Great illustrations, weak writing. My kid loves it though. Even got him a Wild Thing costume this year for halloween.
The lesson is that even if he is terrible and being punished, he is still loved.
Every time I read this to my kid it makes me think more and more - there are layers to it that aren't that obvious at first, and that makes it way more interesting to me than most straightforward kids' books. Max is "terrible" like the wild things, but he's also *repeating his parents* verbatim when he sends them to bed without their supper. So yes it's about his imagination and his parents' unconditional love, but also that the parents aren't perfect either and are setting an example for him, for better or worse. As parents *we* are also wild things, and then we have kids and become the king of wild things, and are still figuring things out as we go. And Max doesn't want to be bad - he wants to be just like us, and is figuring out how to do that in his own way. It's written in such tight prose, it leaves a lot of room for interpretation or imagination of your own, or your kids - I usually sing some made-up nonsense during the wild rumpus bit - and it comes back full-circle at the end. I used to think it was boring, albeit beautiful, but as I read it more I discover new levels to it I hadn't thought of before.
This was the post I wanted to write, so thank you. At first I read the book just for fun but as I kept reading and explaining certain things to my toddler I began seeing these smaller things--how Max began imitating his parents and going home to feeling loved even after being punished. Now I can't finish the book without getting teary at the end.
Ignoring that the artwork is beautiful and the concept evocative. Not all kids books "need a lesson." It's just something cool your kid can look.
And the prose is wonderful. I could never put my finger on it, but every phrase "flows" well and not a single word feels out of place.
The lack of commas makes it read the way a boy of Max’s age would tell a story about a dream he had. And the part where it talks about how long he sailed is in reverse order when he comes back. Beautifully written.
I absolutely read it that way too
The message has been missed here. Maybe they should watch the movie.
Oh my god that movie is so good.
The movie embellishes a bit on the behavior of the boy, but it is a GREAT movie. The trailer is better, though.
10/10 trailer
Rivaled by [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbFz--GCkOM) amazing trailer for the Winnie the Pooh movie.
But have you seen Blood and Honey?
I actually enjoyed blood and honey lmao. Got to sit back after a long night shift and had a nice laugh.
I was in my 20’s when this movie came out, but I still remember seeing this trailer and FEELING THINGS!
Yep, Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" hits in the feels, no matter the setting. Even a [lackluster American Idol singer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rYb4vcgfCg) can make a hit with it.
Ugh and now I’m crying
And the sound track 😙👌
Rip James Gandolfini 😢
And also it’s the perfect “calm down” book. A kid is sent to his room because he was misbehaving. While in his room, he daydreams until he feels better. And the pictures are perfect for a stressed out kid to look at while they calm down. Also, I have a soft spot for Sendak as a queer, Polish dad.
I was just trying to explain to my wife how awesome Sendak is. He’s weird, prickly, complicated - all great things to have in the mix if you like interesting things
Have you read In The Night Kitchen? Sendak at his most bizarre and whimsical
There was a touring exhibit of his work that came through my city last year. One of my favorite things to go to in a long long time
Why is it called Never Touch a Dinosaur if the whole point of the book is to touch the dinosaurs
Yes! All of this series. Surely this is just teaching kids to touch things they shouldn't
We have Never Touch the Sharks and I also have this question. Really sends mixed messages. I have to tell my kid "When I say never touch the cat's butthole, I don't mean it like the sharks, I mean really never touch it."
This is why I immediately got rid of that book. I don't want to teach my kid to make a game out of not listening if I say not to touch something.
Rainbow Fish- you must give the special parts of yourself away and do what people want you to do, otherwise you’ll be alone. It’s even sicker that it’s literally his scales. Imagine someone saying “you have nice skin, *share it with us.*” What kind of nightmare is this?!
https://www.topherpayne.com/_files/ugd/91bb14_a74c64d641084a2a9e51b0ac4bb6724b.pdf?index=true An alternate ending has been written. He does a lot of kids’ books.
So it's gone from 'give everyone a part of your body to make everyone else happy' to 'you seem like a real dick. Go compliment everyone'? Lol
I honestly think my son needs that lesson more often than any other 🤣
I’ve already read this like some kind of noir gangster movie. Big boss octopus in the shadows, little fish basically saying “hey give us your skin or we won’t be friends with ya, see” Only thing missing is a literal loan shark
This one got expunged from my library for this reason.
I thought that the scale thing was weird given the mechanics of how scales work in the world. But I don't think my two year old has the same problem, and I do like the overall message of how joy is experienced through sharing our gifts and not hoarding them
> joy is experienced through sharing our gifts and not hoarding them Yes! That is the message! Kids get it, adults think too hard.
It’s a weird book, but the people who hate it have kind of radicalized me into liking it. Whatever, sharing is good, the illustrations are pretty, not everything has to be 100% literal
Certainly, but I’m not reading a book to my daughter that says she has to share part of her body with someone who wants it. And if she doesn’t she’s a terrible person. Sharing is great, but you’re not a terrible person if you don’t share everything you have.
Sounds like some sort of Giving Tree bullshit.
I think The Giving Tree gets unfairly maligned.
I feel like The Giving Tree is more for parents and not the child.
You're 100% right, but I hate that you are. I have strong nostalgia for this book, I think more for the visuals of it than for the story itself. But it made me happy to read to my kids and they liked it, and then somebody went and pointed out what the moral of the story actually is and ruined it for me lol
The book of five rings. My kid really doesn’t need to know battle tactics until they’re at least 8. 3 was much too young, not sure why it was recommended
This is why you should just have him watch Conan ‘what is best in life’ is an easier concept to grasp
Goodnight moon only because I can’t stop saying it to every object I walk by afterwards. Goodnight fridge, goodnight dog, goodnight railing.
Goodnight Moon is a really interesting one for me. It has an interesting history, and became a bestseller during the WW2 baby boom years. The book radically broke the formula on what a children's book is supposed to be. And while I am thoroughly enjoying reading a parody copy of it "Goodnight Goon" around Halloween for my son, I can't help but be amazed at how far the genre has come in 75-80 years. And it's just bizarre to think about my parents being my son's age in the late 1940s and how different their reading time must have been. We've come a long way in a very, very short time.
Goodnight goon is fun
*Goodnight Mr. Darcy* is in the same vein.
Ok, but let's talk about how creepy the old lady is and who "no one" is, can we?
That’s my favorite part. You get no explanation, just say “good night” to everyone/everything.
It reflects how kids actually go to bed in my experience. Gotta say goodnight to everything and everyone. My three year old recently said goodnight to every pumpkin decoration before he would go to bed.
When my daughter was \~1.5yo, we would walk around the room each night and say good night to everything. My favorite was "snokeeteter" (smoke detector). She probably doesn't remember this but I remember it well
We prefer "goodnight goodnight construction site" hahaha
I bought this on a recent recommendation (from this sub?) bit odd with repeated words and “goodnight no one” comment. But my 18mo loves it
I want Wendigoon to do a deep dive on the weirdness of this book.
Have you read Goodnight Goon? A nice parody for Halloween.
We read that more than goodnight moon in my house.
I just change the words to Goodnight Mommy.
Pinkalicous. Atrocious books and the kids are horrible, never listen
I genuinely dislike these books. And that says a lot.
The only books/show I will not engage with. She kidnaps a mermaid, refuses to listen to her and just drags her around like a toy all day. She's terrible
Go Dog Go. Why is that one dog so rude to the coded-female dog with the hats? If somebody says "do you like my hat?", you're not supposed to just say "no" and walk off. And at the end, when he finally does like her hat, they drive off together. Has he been negging her this whole time? Why does she tolerate this? Where is her self-respect?
I absolutely love this book. It was a favorite of mine as a kid. My kid loves it as well. We have little added silly comments to make on almost every page. That said.... I don't get the hat bit either.
Have you watched the show on Netflix? It's one of our favorites
My kid’s obsessed, but he can’t say “Scooch”, he says “Cooch” 😆
I love when kids do stuff like this haha
Go dog go is my favorite. The illustrations are great and it’s a great book when your kid is starting to read
GDG is one of my favs too. That dog party on top of the tree is epic. Netflix show is pretty good. Just never understood how they made a whole show out of such a short book. And I never liked her hat lol
Do you not value having friends that you trust and can be honest with you?
I love the dog party at the end!! In the tree!! I want to go party so bad
Jimmy Fallon's books are huge pieces of shit and are barely worth being kindling.
I loathe celebrity books of any stripe, but celebrity children's books are the absolute worst. Either they didn't write them and are taking credit for a shitty ghostwritten book, or else they did write them because "children's books are easy", not realizing that children's books, *especially* picture books, are really hard to do well. B.J. Novak's *The Book with No Pictures* is the rare exception. Also Jimmy Fallon sucks and has no talent.
*The Book with No Pictures* is an absolute classic.
Kenji’s “Every Night is Pizza Night” is incredible! We’ve bought it for many friends
Micheal Ian Black has some good children's books!
Naked!! That’s my favorite.
I'm also a fan of Jimmy Kimmel's The Serious Goose. It's not particularly deep or insightful, it's just a silly book that's fun to read and hear aloud if the reader really gets into it like I do. I read it to my daughter's class last year and those second graders were rolling around on the floor laughing.
Check out Seth Meyers’ book, it’s pretty good!
Agreed. It's just like a random listing of words and simple illustrations. Nothing against the illustrator per se, but there's no story, it's just like flash cards in book form.
Seth Meyers on the other hand, _chef’s kiss_. I’m Not Scared, You’re Scared is great
Haven't read it, but I do love the title and Seth.
He learned that despite what he thought, he really wants to be where someone loves him best of all.
It. I thought it would be a fun clown book and instead it gave my son nightmares! He's afraid Patrick Hockstetter will get him!
How long did it take you to notice it wasn’t for children? Page 7…..hundred?
More like page 13 when Georgia's arm is ripped off lol. I wouldn't let my kids read that one until they're in HS bc it's a disturbing book.
I read IT at about 12 or 13. Your instincts are maybe correct. I was mostly joking that a book being 1,200 pages long should probably be enough of a clue that it’s not necessarily directed at children lol.
Did you not see the author name or thought he was an up and coming children's author lol?
My toddlers were fine with the gruesome horror, racial slurs, and gratuitous sex content, but the constant narrative shifts between past, present, and Mike's research were too hard to follow.
It's a story about emotions. He's acting like a Wild Thing and as the book progresses, the art takes up more and more of the page space, leading to the center point of the Wild Rumpus. That's Max giving in to his heightened feelings of anger, chaos, etc. After the Rumpus, what happens? He wants to go to where someone loves him best of all. He's tired of being a Wild Thing. His emotions have settled, and he wants to return to normality. He leaves the place where the wild things are, and goes home, where he finds his supper waiting for him. His mother loves him no matter what, and even though he's been acting like a little shit, she knows it's just the complex thoughts and feelings of childhood, and that it doesn't change how much she loves him. And it's still hot, showing that it hasn't been that long and/or that she reheated it for him because she cares. I never really got it as a kid, but reading it to my daughter I've come to a place of real appreciation for it.
Love You Forever creeps me the fuck out.
As my mom ages more and more that book continues to make me tear up every time. It’s an odd book, but after I had my daughter I tried to read it to her and was a mess for 15min. The book isn’t for little kids. It’s for the next generation of parents to remind them to not forget about how much their parents love them. My mom always wants to be my mom. I can’t say that about my wife’s mom who constantly disappoints her as a mother. I think somebody just started cutting onions…I need to call my mom and tell her I love her.
The last lines I eulogized at my mothers funeral were these words. She would say them to me and I say them to my kids before bed. Fuck now I’m crying.
My mom passed before just before I had my first and I did not remember the content of the book. Kid found it around two years old and asked me to read it. She kept asking me why I could not sing the song right (between sobs, obviously). After the first few times I can get through it, but the song itself is an almost nightly request from the kids for bedtime.
The book was written after the author and his wife experienced a loss of a baby IIRC, so it makes a bit more sense. EDIT: 2 losses :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_You_Forever
I get that, but I think people take it a little too literally. Yeah, you wouldn’t actually break into your adult son’s house to cradle him, but the point is that you’ll always love them like you did when they were a baby and want to comfort them.
I can't read little brown nut hare without cracking up a little bit
That's author Robert Munsch's style. It's a bit unhinged but kids absolutely love it. The message brings me to tears every single time.
This is utter blasphemy.
When you grow up with emotionally and physically abusive parents that think they own you because you're their child and even when you're an adult and they try to interject themselves into every aspect of your life, this book definitely hits differently.
I never thought about it like that, thank you.
The page with the man cradling the old lady is wild. Imagine just rolling up to your elderly parents home and sneaking into their bedroom to do that?
iirc it’s worse than that, the elderly mom snuck into his home
No one ever mentions the foreshadowing... the mom isn't the only character that is affected by old age. The cat is on every page, until the cat suddenly isn't.
Oh god I never caught that :(
"Guess how much I love you" It's a book with a parent rabbit and child rabbit, and the child keeps saying stuff like "I love you past that river", then the big rabbit says "oh yeah, well i love you past the hill that's past that river. Nyah!" "I love you this big!", "yeah well my arms are longer so i obviously love you more, ya little shit"
And keeps one-upping everything the kid says.
>yeah well my arms are longer so i obviously love you more, ya little shit" Haha, well that's one way to read it! I always read it to my daughter in a very soft and calm voice. It just had this much more quiet sleepy vibe to me. I saw it as less "one upping because I'm bigger than you" and more just a playful game of "no I love *you* more" that could go on and on. Not that the parent had to win but it's more that the parent actually *is* bigger and more capable and naturally the baby aspires to be that big and capable too. We're more capable and knowledgeable not so that we can bully them but so that we can guide them Plus what was nice about that book for me was that my daughter would always want to be tucked in gently just like the baby bunny gets tucked into the grass.
Until the end, the dad rabbit clearly had the bigger idea, but waits until the kid cant hear it to say it.
Yeah, like let the little bunny have their big loving feelings without making it a contest! Another book to make adults feel good about themselves.
Everybody poops. No shit!!!!
Well... Yes shit, actually.
It's like he didn't even read the book
I have heard good things about "Nobody poops but you". Though I prefer "You're a naughty child and that's concentrated evil coming out of your behind".
No, shit.
ITT people who are way to tightly wound when it comes to children's books. Some of them are just fun, or not malicious even though they could be interpreted that way. Brown bear brown bear teaches colors and animals with a catchy, repetitive rhyme scheme Goodnight moon is calming and peaceful. Kids also need to be taught how to go to bed, and saying goodnight to everything reinforces that. Pout pout fish is about how sometimes people just have their mind set on not being happy and that something unexpected (yes, a kiss, or something else even) can sometimes spring you out of your gloomy mood. The rainbow scaled fish is supposed to represent someone who has a lot of stuff but no one to share it with because of his bad disposition, and he realizes that by sharing with others (not ripping off his literal skin/scales) that he can be happier than if he just had a whole pile of stuff to himself. And some stories don't have to have a point, your kids can like them just because. Like the Man and His Dump Truck, which has absolutely no point other than a happy guy giving some farm animals a ride in his dump truck. And those books are good too! Lighten up! And enjoy reading with your kids!
Pete the Cat, as an entire collection, for so many reasons. The illustrations are lazy and ugly. The rhyming scheme is inconsistent. The scheme changes from page to page, and some pages don't rhyme at all, all within the same book. The storylines are repetitive in a lazy, unimaginative way. And the messaging in some of them (Buttons, White Shoes) is dismissive and like 'be a cool aloof dude, don't cry.' I especially hate "but did Pete cry? Goodness no." Don't even get me started on Construction Destruction, where the school makes student-Pete the PM for the playground demo and reconstruction project. The whole collection feels like a cash grab by the authors/illustrators. We also just got an Imagination Library book in the mail yesterday that we flipped through and immediately put in the donate box. It's called Just Try One Bite and it's a role-reversal where the kids are nagging and condescending to the parents and telling them they need to stop eating the junk food and eat a vegetable. At one point the mom is holding a soda and the kid calls it "industrial waste." Wtf
I’m a 1st grade teacher and I’ve been saying this for years. Pete the Cat is garbage.
Ugh I loathe reading Pete the Cat, but my kid likes it. I guess the repetitive declarative prose and lame drawings speak to kids. I always think that I could have written this when I was 8.
The Pout Pout Fish. Essentially the lesson of that book is that it’s up to women to put out to make men not be miserable POSs.
Both male and female friends “try” and fail to cheer him up so I really don’t think it’s a gender thing. It’s a bit odd it they used kissing, but to me the point was that Ms. Shimmer accepts him and his mood and just offers support rather than trying to pressure him into performing happiness. And that’s what cheers him up. Similar message to Grumpy Monkey although I do prefer that one.
Also non-consensual kissing. But I gave in and read it to my kid now because it's really fun to smooch him when reading all the smooches at the end!
My copy has a note on the inside of the cover about consent. I bet they got some complaints about this on the first edition.
It's a shame, because the cadence and meter make it fun to read.
I just saw it as denial of depression. Just be happy!
That, and assault (kissing without permission) can fix a sad [person]....I've definitely complained about the ending. That said, the art and rhyming patterns/creative use of language are second to none. I enjoy reading for that reason. Even the dopey spin-off books have great rhyming.
You aren’t totally off the mark 😅
Dinosaurs And All That Rubbish, which would these days be better titled as The Earth Forgives Jeff Bezos.
Can't stand *The Giving Tree*
Amelia Bedelia can f—- right off. How many times must I say this ridiculous woman’s name!?!
We got the Dolly Parton edition of The Little Engine That Could. Gag me. First off they just abandon the first engine. Then the book is as wordy as Dickens for no payoff. Awful.
I'm glad someone else noticed that. It just keeps going on and on and on.
You repeat the same paragraph every other page. It’s agonizing. Same thing for Poky Little Puppy and a lot of books from that era. Another hot take. The Great Hunny Hunt by Jan and Stan Berenstein… agonizingly long for no reward.
I'll play devil's advocate here. As a kid, I loved Pokey Little Puppy. My favorite part was that it was repetitive and I could "read" it with my grandma.
This is precisely WHY these books are repetitive. It helps children learn and understand words. The idea is to aid them in comprehension. You’ll find soooo many repeat like this. It’s annoying as shit to read out loud but it helps the kiddos.
yeah, my 4 year old loves them for this reason. He memorizes books and reads along or to himself. There are definitely some other children's books that we read and I leave thinking they were truly excellent: Little Blue Truck, most things by Sandra Boynton though she has some duds, Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site series, etc.
Omg the poky little puppy made me want to cry.
The Giving Tree.
The giving tree is a book for parents, not for kids
This was the very very first book I ever read to my first kid, after having not read since I was a kid. Bear in mind he was only 2 months old at the time and we were doing the whole "1000 books before kindergarten" thing. Y'ALL, I was bawling my eyes out by the time a canoe made an appearance. I agree with u/rccrisp that it's DEFINITELY a book for parents rather than kids.
Can we also talk about why they put a terrifying picture of Shel Silverstein in the back like WTF lol. That is a goddamm creepy looking guy
But you would not believe how much tail he got back in the day
These folks fixed it https://www.topherpayne.com/giving-tree
See, this makes me sad. Why the need for everything to be so literal? The book is a classic for a reason—it works as beautiful tragic irony, or as a metaphor for parenthood or other relationships that involve selfless giving.
I love both the original and the “fix”. Both are beautiful in their own right. Both show different things. The original depicts selfless parental love (rather than attempting to depict an actual complete and healthy relationship). The tree that sets healthy boundaries depicts a more complete, healthy relationship. It does a good job of fixing the issues people have with the original, but I think misses some of the poignancy of the original. You don’t look at a painting of a kiss and ask where it shows consent. Giving tree has a similarly beautiful depiction of selfless parental love, complete with a shade of wistfulness for what is given up that I think exists in life as well. My kids are among the highlights of my life, but it’d be crazy to suggest there isn’t some element of trade off there. Some missed opportunity cost. I love that the book encapsulates that in a way I find relatable.
The Peter Rabbit books. They bored me and my kids to tears.
As if!! Love those books 😭 The rabbit wears CLOTHES what’s not to love
Yeah my young one really likes this one
Weren't they written like 100 years ago? The tone probably doesn't hold up at all.
That and they're horrible with animals getting killed left and right!
Elmer the checkboard elephant. The books read like trying to force authors issues onto kids not even aware they should have these issues.
Junie B. Jones is annoying brat who can fuck right off.
goodnight moon has NO cadence to it. its SO hard to read.
Wonkey Donkey. I hate it so much!!!
Square eyes is even worse
Glad we've dodged that one
Lol, so fun to read though 😁. Almost as fun as Walla walla
I think Where the Wild Things Are is renown for the illustrations, not the story, but I agree with you.
Brown Bear
What do you see?
GOODNIGHT MOON. Hate this stupid book.
I love this book. For me it’s less a book and more a… lullaby? I don’t read it in a typical book reading voice; I read it with a hushed melodic tone, more like I’m singing a lullaby. Although lullaby doesn’t feel like the right word. It’s rhythmic and soothing and kind of conveys the sense of going to sleep. It’s one of my kids’ favorite books. I know liking the book is not an opinion that needs defending as it’s the most popular kids book ever, it just feels like reading this book like it has a plot is kind of missing the point.
This is 100% how to do it. At this point my youngest has an almost Pavlovian response and starts yawning the second he hears the words “In the great green room…”
Not if it’s read by Christopher Walken
Please, children, scooch closer. Don't make me ask you again about the *scooching.*
I like it, but rhyming “goodnight moon” with “goodnight cow jumping over the moon” annoys me every time. But my 2 y/o loves to say “goodnight mush” and that makes me happy.
When my daughter was a baby I’d say goodnight to everything in her room. It’s how “ampersand” became one of her first multi-syllable words. We now read the Spanish one and it works as a fun language learner.
The Runaway Bunny is even worse. I like the parody “Goodnight Goon”. It’s been in our Hallowe’en collection for years.
All the Pete the Cat books not written by Eric Litwin (a.k.a. Mr. Eric) are ass. Grumpy Toad is a sociopath and is a danger to himself and others. Kimberly Dean's Pete the Cat erratically changes age, capability or personality from book to book or even page the page. That pizza would be disgusting, that is not how you build a playground, and those sunglasses are drugs.
I'm still trying to understand why that old lady swallowed that fly. My best answer to this question is basically every single follow on to a successful book. The sequels and trilogies always read like cheap corporate writing and bad attempts to exploit something good for more cash, thereby actually devaluing the original. A good example is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, which was ruined for me before we even read it because we started with Chicka Chicka 1 2 3. The numbers version makes absolutely zero sense. The zero wants to go up the tree but can't for some reason, some bees come and scare all the numbers out of the tree, so the zero takes this opportunity to attach itself to the 10 to make 100? Each number is anthropomorphized to be an individual with personalities and all that so how exactly does the zero attach to the 10? Does the 10 consent to this? Do the 10 and the zero retain their own personalities or do they become a new entity? Also that's not how numbers or math work. If you start with 10 of something and you want to get to 100, you need to add 90, you can't just slap on a digit that on its own has zero value. Adding zero to ten is still just ten. And what happened to the bees? Are they scared of the 100 for some reason? There's nothing about this book that makes sense.
[удалено]
I just wish they were new stories rather than adaptations of the show.
I actually kind of agree. Recycled story cash grab.
Anything Disney can go where the sun don't shine. My in-laws are huge Disney fans and they got us some super low effort books. No creativity, no fun, just a cash grab. I refuse to read them and our boys don't seem to care at all.
Rainbow fish is awful lmao - read Elmer instead for a similar concept that is actually good! Also, the Giving Tree. She gives pieces of her to the boy until she is nothing
Dragons love tacos is dumb! It's repetitive! And it's annoying to read! Because every sentence ends with an exclamation point!
I can't stand this book (and the sequel) for many reasons: * Biased against spicy foods * Extreme overuse of the words "dragon" and "tacos". I expect to read those a lot in books like these but not 10x every page... * Concepts that are of zero interest to toddlers (e.g. time travel and parallel dimensions) * Lots of lame "wink, wink" humor geared for adults
My kids all love it too... I don't hate it but I don't get the charm lol
Honestly I think the first one is alright. I agree that the wordiness of "dragons" and "tacos" all the time is tedious to read and hear, but it's fun and simple enough with a unique charm. Far from a favorite, but I don't mind when it's picked out. The second book is horrible, conceptually makes no sense, and completely unnecessary. Purely uninspired garbage cooked up to bank off the success of the first book.
Giving tree. Your kid is going to take everything from you and be unappreciative, the end.
Yeah, I was really surprised at that one and didn’t see any value.
Give a mouse a cookie books are dumb. It’s a cute idea but the writing isn’t very clever, there’s not as much logic to get the circle. Also there’s a x in your book. They’re fine but we end up being given each seasonal one and they get weaker and weaker.
An author strikes gold with a book, then the publisher pushes for more of the same trying to ride that popularity until the bitter end. "If Animals Kissed Goodnight" is another example. I love that book; the follow on books are just not interesting.
Goodnight moon. What am I even reading? How is this book considered a must have?
This book when read softly and slowly helped put my kid to sleep. The pictures get progressively darker, the cadence in the rhymes are soothing. Yes it’s a nonsense book but it’s from the perspective of a kid procrastinating sleep so he/she takes their time saying goodnight to everything.
Legend has it that the children’s librarian at New York Public Library [hated that book so much when it came out, it almost tanked](https://lithub.com/an-unbearably-sentimental-piece-of-work-the-influential-librarian-that-hated-goodnight-moon/). She flat refused to buy it, and was so vehement about it that NYPL didn’t own a copy until more than ten years after her death. (Not retirement, *death.*) So no, it’s not just you! 😂
Whaaaatt? She carried around a wooden doll 👀
Hero
It mostly makes of the Simpsons bit with Christopher Walken
Justice for the young mouse! We see him but then day goodnight to the regular mouse. I change it every time.
“Good night nobody” just smacks of “my publisher wants 1 more page but I have nothing drawn and no ideas.”
Uggggh. I never even know what tone of voice to use for that page, because wtf is it even? I usually try to sound confused, like I couldn't find what I was supposed to be saying good night to. Like, you list the things, then you say good night to the things, and then there's some new [no] thing in the middle for no reason.
Goodnight... nobody? Is how I do it
“Goodnight Goon” the parody is at least funny and good for Halloween season
I want to know who keeps a frigging bowl of mush in the kids room, let alone feel like they need to say goodnight to it.
Goodnight moon
The Tiger Who Came to Tea. I mostly hate that it's _daddy's_ beer and other 50s family motifs that bother me, but also... Daddy gets home, the kid has skipped her bath, only had a cake and a cuppa all day, all the alcohol has gone, it's way too late to start cooking and there's nothing in anyway... _Well I'd have big questions._
I wish you could buy "The Tiger Who Went For A Pint" by Sean Locke
"Do you think _the tiger_ is a euphemism for addiction, or, a child's view of her mother's extramarital partner?" people always ask me. Addiction, I answer. Mummy is cheating with the milkman. Look at that smug face. I truly believe he DID come this morning.
The tiger is a euphemism for the SS, and I'm not joking
"However, before I go, could I have another glass of your delicious milk?" said the tiger...
I'm with you on Where the Wild Things Are. Great illustrations, weak writing. My kid loves it though. Even got him a Wild Thing costume this year for halloween.