Congratulations to "The Creepiest Children's Book Ever"

I've discovered in the short amount of time that I've been reading children's books that, many times, it takes very little talent, skill, ability, what-have-you to write and to publish a children's book. Stories seem to take unusual turns for no good reason, characters act like little jerks to their parents and it's supposed to be endearing, and pictures are marginally good at best. Of course, there are exceptions...many of them in fact. But the bad ones, the really bad ones, just ruin it for the rest of the class.

I've also noticed a lot of weird moral direction in children's books as well--lessons like "Remember not to give anything to people who didn't help you when you needed them" or "Remember that you have to do something for someone before they'll help you." In fact, we've taken to changing the end of the classic folk tale The Little Red Hen to the following: "And, A., the lesson here is that you should should be generous to others even when they aren't generous to you." I can't help but feel sorry for that hen too. She made her bread and ate it all by herself, and the last page of that book shows her going to bed...alone.

But amid all of the questionably descent books on our bookshelves, I came across one that we got secondhand that totally baffles me. I find it to be one of the most disturbing books I've seen in a long time, which may explain why there's a rubber stamp imprint, "DISCARD," inside the front cover of this one-time library book. Actually an "AVERT YOUR EYES BECAUSE YOU MAY SOON SEE SOMETHING THAT WILL MAKE YOU WANT TO HOLD YOUR CHILDREN EVEN TIGHTER AT NIGHT" stamp would have seemed more appropriate. I just had to share this with all of you, to make sure I'm not completely crazy in my assessment.

The book is called Quiet, Noisy, and, as the title suggests, it's all about opposites. Great idea. I love books like that. The excellent Lisa Patricelli books come to mind. But this one may as well be called Creepy, Creepier. And here's why:

J. to me: "Is that dog licking blood off the ground?"
You know, he very well may be, because he looks like a rabid beast of the apocalypse.


I can't possibly say enough about clowns. If my older sister actually sees this picture, it's likely she may not sleep again for years. Not only is this the saddest clown ever, he is the most distant, aloof, emotionally dead clown I've ever seen. And you know what that amounts to to me? Crazy psycho killer clown. I mean, he's not even making eye contact with the children. He can't, because he's having to concentrate to listen to the voices in his head.


At the end of this children's classic, there are some suggestions about games that you can play to experience quiet things and loud things. Here's a game called "Dead Lions," but I've renamed it "The Wrong Game to Play When You're a 40-Year-Old Man with a Creepy Beard in a Room Full of Children."

So, my question for all of you is as follows: "What is your absolute favorite children's book, and which one do you think would look better atop a pile of burning tires than on your bookshelf?