Did you ever read a children's book to dc's that you regretted..

[Paz]

When ds was 5 and dd was 3 I got a book from the library. It was about a boy who was taking a bath and let the tub overflow. He then got a boat and floated down the stairs and outside it made a river, and it was all very fun and imaginative. Until ds tried to overflow the sink later that day and I heard running water and saw water leaking from the bathroom coming through the ceiling in the downstairs playroom. What was I thinking?

[ElaineJ]

I do regret letting my son read our collection of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. They are very amusing, but i think my son identifies too closely with Calvin. Sometimes I have to deal with reenactments of Calvin's behavior at the dinner table, etc.... :glare:

 

Elaine

[Nestof3]

:)

 

That reminds me of one of my favorite Bugs Bunny cartoon when I was little. He was on a bed (I think it was Bugs Bunny) and he was floating through streets and such on it. I think it was from raining so hard, though.

[Country Mouse]

Elaine,

I could have written your post! My ds IS Calvin and he loves to read our C & H books. He has gotten into a lot of trouble repeating verbatim some of Calvin's lines, like when he said to me deadpan "Mom, some women aren't meant to be mothers."

Dh and I have debated taking the books away but he enjoys them so much I can't do it. We've had to have lots of talks about not saying some of the words and phrases encountered in there, though.

[tajott]

My friend recommended that book too. It didn't lead to an overflow, but I didn't care for the book at all,andnever checked it out agian.

 

And i'm sure i've stopped reading books, but i don't remember them. That's probably a good thing!

[msjones]

I, too, have mixed feeling about all those Calvin and Hobbes books in my boys' room.

 

Also, when my son was in public school for kindergarten, his teacher read The BFG to the class. In the first few chapters the little girl is snatched out of her bed by a huge hand coming through the window. Yikes. Not an image my son needed in his mind at bedtimes.

[KristenS]

Harold and the Purple Crayon ... you should see my daughter's wall now. LOL. But for the 2yo she was then, it's actually pretty good art!

[kiana]

Also, when my son was in public school for kindergarten, his teacher read The BFG to the class. In the first few chapters the little girl is snatched out of her bed by a huge hand coming through the window. Yikes. Not an image my son needed in his mind at bedtimes.

 

You don't know what'll set some kids off ... I read the little house books, including the scene where Grandpa gets chased through the big woods by a panther ... and there was a big tree right outside my window ... I was *terrified* (at age 6)

[RoughCollie]

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Harold and the Purple Crayon

 

Both books inspired my children.

[msjones]

When I was teaching in a regular public school classroom, I read Where The Red Fern Grows aloud to my class.

 

This particular group of kids loved this story passionately. I often went far over my allotted reading time because we are all so engrossed.

 

When I read the end, some of the kids (quite a few, actually -- 7 or 8) were terribly upset. Angry, even. Angry at ME, I think, for putting them through it.

 

I certainly hadn't intended that. It's a beautiful story, wonderful to read aloud, and a classic, in my opinion. But I think some of the kids felt too 'exposed' having to deal with such sadness in a big group. I had not anticipated that.

 

So, I guess you'd say I regret that.

[laurafrantz]

Last night we read chapter one of The Odyssey out loud. There were lots of giggles and red cheeks when I got to the part about the naked natives lying around eating lotus fruit...if I had had a classical education, I would have already known about the naked fruit-eaters...

[AndyJoy]

When I was teaching in a regular public school classroom, I read Where The Red Fern Grows aloud to my class.

 

This particular group of kids loved this story passionately. I often went far over my allotted reading time because we are all so engrossed.

 

When I read the end, some of the kids (quite a few, actually -- 7 or 8) were terribly upset. Angry, even. Angry at ME, I think, for putting them through it.

 

I certainly hadn't intended that. It's a beautiful story, wonderful to read aloud, and a classic, in my opinion. But I think some of the kids felt too 'exposed' having to deal with such sadness in a big group. I had not anticipated that.

 

So, I guess you'd say I regret that.

 

When my fourth grade teacher read it to us, we were all crying at the end, until she started sobbing so hard she couldn't stop! Seeing our teacher so emotional broke the tension and made us laugh. She actually had me finish reading the book to the class because she couldn't compose herself!

[Guest Lorna]

I regret reading my children 'Treasure Island'. I just couldn't do Long John Silver's voice / accent. I am sure I spoiled a wonderful book for them.

[KristenS]

I read an article by Susan Fletcher once, where she was visiting a school to give a talk and the teacher gushed about how much her class was LOVING the dragon story she wrote. And then she came back a week later, and they were all mad at her because at the end, one of the baby draclings dies. They were asking, "Why? Why?" and she felt badly for them. The article was a good one, though, explaining why sometimes authors make those tough choices in a book.

 

Anyway, even authors get those Oops moments. :)

[MamaT]

Yep, it was Where the Red Fern Grows for my oldest (didn't make the rest read it). I didn't read it to him, but assigned it to him in the 4th grade.

 

I found him lying on the floor of his room sobbing, and knew for this sensitive kid, I had made a mistake!

[joannqn]

My kids surprised me and handled Where the Red Fern Grows just fine. I was the one who had a problem with it.

 

I chose one book that I thought would go well with our history unit that embarrassed me to read to the kids. It included talk of breasts, nudity, and lust. Oops! It was historical fiction set in ancient Egypt during Moses time.

[katemary63]

My kids surprised me and handled Where the Red Fern Grows just fine. I was the one who had a problem with it.

 

 

 

My 6th grader and I read it together and did the Progeny Press study guide. She loved the book and while she may have shed a tear or two, I bawled my fool head off. But then, I can't read ANYTHING without crying. My kid's laugh so hard. I cried all the way through Justin Morgan Had a Horse - and there's really not much to cry about in that book. Oh well, it makes read a loud time funny for the kids.

[CalicoKat]

When ds was 5 and dd was 3 I got a book from the library. It was about a boy who was taking a bath and let the tub overflow. He then got a boat and floated down the stairs and outside it made a river, and it was all very fun and imaginative. Until ds tried to overflow the sink later that day and I heard running water and saw water leaking from the bathroom coming through the ceiling in the downstairs playroom. What was I thinking?

We've regretted watching Finding Nemo many times. Our plumber is very happy. Many, many toys flushed to freedom --starting 5 minutes after that particular scene while viewing said movie. :lurk5:

[Alice]

Elaine,

I could have written your post! My ds IS Calvin and he loves to read our C & H books. He has gotten into a lot of trouble repeating verbatim some of Calvin's lines, like when he said to me deadpan "Mom, some women aren't meant to be mothers."

Dh and I have debated taking the books away but he enjoys them so much I can't do it. We've had to have lots of talks about not saying some of the words and phrases encountered in there, though.

 

My son is named Calvin too. He hasn't encountered the Calvin and Hobbes books yet, just as an annoyance to him when people invariably ask him where Hobbes is. But sometimes I think he's channeling the character....like when he invents his own games where the rules constantly change and tend to involve danger.

[lynn]

Harold and the Purple Crayon should never be read to a 3 year old. We've gone through many mr clean erasers after that one.

Edited March 6, 2009 by lynn

[Kidlit]

This thread is so funny! I'm really LOL at all the Calvin and Hobbes references; I was so sad when Waterston (is that his name?) retired the strip. Oh--and the Where the Red Fern Grows references--I have a cousin who read it as an adult, and her husband said he was afraid he was going to have to take her to the hospital because she was crying so much.:tongue_smilie: She is a true animal lover, so it really got to her.

[cathmom]

This is not a book, but when my oldest was about 3, he saw Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too, when Pooh tries to have the wind take his letter to Santa to the North Pole. My son then obsessively tried to throw a letter up into the wind to the North Pole. When that didn't work, he thought height would help and wanted me to open his second story window so he could throw the letter from there. I kept trying to point out to him that this method did NOT work in the movie either, but he refused to listen to logic!

[Sharon H in IL]

We were very careful not to allow Calvin & Hobbes to our impressionable youth until he was old enough to grasp the key concept that this was FICTION and not to be repeated.

 

I don't think Mr. Popper's Penguins should be read to little children, because it's so darn boring. And Little Women is badly paced. There, I've said it.

 

Son #2 insisted we stop reading Madeleine L'Engle's 'A Wrinkle in Time' because the dark theme was too much for him. He was six or seven.

[Peela]

Yes, a stupid fictional book set in the middle ages that ended up taking way, way too many weeks to read aloud. I have always been very fussy about our reading, and it really annoyed me that I let this twaddle through my filter system and was then stuck with reading it aloud for weeks on end (because I could never let THEM know that I was so fussy about what I read to them, or they might have rebelled, so I had to keep reading it).

[DinoMom]

Junie Jones B.

At that time DD was jsut 2 yrs old. She thought it was cool to talk or yell as rudely as Junie Jones after she read it. Her language and her behavior is an exact duplication of the book.

[Miss Sherry]

When my fourth grade teacher read it to us, we were all crying at the end, until she started sobbing so hard she couldn't stop! Seeing our teacher so emotional broke the tension and made us laugh. She actually had me finish reading the book to the class because she couldn't compose herself!

Oh that poor teacher. I feel bad for her. But I probably would have been one of the students laughing if I had been one of her students. :001_smile:

I can't think of a book off hand that's been a big problem for us but when our two oldest children were little we had to stop letting them watch videos of "The Three Stooges". We loved "The Three Stooges" and thought they were so funny but our children were getting too:ohmy: wild imitating them.

[Margo out of lurking]

This is much funnier than I was expecting when I clicked to read the thread.

 

It's nice to know I'm not alone.

 

* * *

 

9yods: (Burps loudly at dinner table)

 

Me: (Turns expectantly)

 

Ds: "Better out than in, I always say!" (Thank you, Shrek.)

 

Me: (Mouth dropping open)

 

Ds: "Must be a barge coming through!" (Thank you, Calvin & Hobbes.)

 

 

I laughed so hard that I almost cried. And then I threatened to send him to his room.

 

I've always called Calvin & Hobbes the homeschooler's dirty little secret, lol.

[sleepy]

Yes, Rainbow Fish. Bah. :tongue_smilie: