Monday, July 16, 2012

It was the Creepiest Children's Book I've EVER Read


It was the creepiest children’s book I’ve ever read.  Ada brought to me “Love You Forever” by Robert Munsch, and asked me to read it to her last night.  It started out well enough.  A young mom rocked her infant son in her arms while telling him, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll love you for always, As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”   The phrasing was a little awkward, but the sentiment was fine.

At age two the boy was a little terror, pulling books off of shelves and flushing his mother’s watch down the toilet.  I thought, “Yeah, I get it.  I’ve blogged about stuff like that.”  The still young mom snuck into her son’s room and held him while he was sleeping, rocking him in her lap while repeating, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll love you for always, As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.” 

Fast-forward seven years.  The boy was nine years old, and she was still creeping into his room to hold her sleeping son.  And then again at age 15.  I thought, “This is getting a little strange.”  This lady was on her hands and knees, creeping into her teenage son’s bedroom to hold him while he was sleeping.  The smell alone would keep most parents out of their teenaged son’s bedroom.     

Turn the page, and the boy was a young man moving into a home of his own.  The middle-aged mom was now driving across town in the dark, a ladder strapped to the roof of her car, so that she could sneak into her adult son’s bedroom, sit on the bed, pickup her sleeping adult son and rock him in her arms while reciting, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll love you for always, As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”   

I thought, “Cut the apron strings, lady.”  This was more than a little weird.  This guy must have been hitting the bottle pretty hard to be sleeping through his mother’s B & E and never waking-up while she held him.  The old broad must have been seriously strong, too, as her son was twice her size!   If I were him, I’d have a taste-tester check my breakfast cereal in the morning.  The old gal was one syringe away from Munchausen Syndrome by proxy.

The story continued to show the elderly mother calling her son for a visit because she was quite ill.  The adult son went to his mother, held her in his lap while rocking in a rocking chair, and recited back the poem his mother told him.  Then he went home, went into his sleeping infant daughter’s room, and rocked her in his arms, telling her the very same words that he had just spoken to his mother.  

I’m hoping this guy got therapy, and soon, or his adult daughter will be calling the cops because some old creepy guy on a ladder will be trying to break into her room at night to hold her and recite poetry while she sleeps.   This is why we still need the second amendment. 

As I finished the book, Ada squealed, “Go back to the page about the toilet.  That was funny!”   

Whew! 

No damage done.

Tonight, I’m burning my first book.


10 comments:

  1. I'm glad Ada didn't suffer from the reading of that book! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. You crack me up! That book IS a bit creepy and what the mom does is very odd once the boy is older. But for some unexplainable reason, my voice cracks and tears well up when I read both the page where he picks up his elderly mom and when he then picks up his own daughter. If only the author had chosen to say the mom was IMAGINING picking up her son when he was older than 5, or just stroked his cheek and thought back to rocking him, it would have been so much less weird!

    I totally understand your first book burning, though. :)

    ~Jill

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amen! I HATE that book, it is seriously disturbing. So glad to hear someone else concur!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow, really? I think I almost checked that book out at the library. Now I'm going to have to, just to be sure you're not pulling my leg. REALLY?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Really. And between the comments here and on Facebook, I know I'm not alone on this one. But, I completely understand why you'd think I was pulling your leg!

      Delete
  5. It is disturbing isn't it? Reminds me of the mother in Everyone loves Raymond. She's a little creepy too.

    Glad Ada wasn't too disturbed by it!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I abhor that book. So.much.
    My children have received copies, MULTIPLE COPIES, as gifts, and oddly enough, they have disappeared. Thank you, Waste Management, for saving me from the wretched book.

    ReplyDelete
  7. When we home schooled our children, we pre-read every book before the children. As teens, we had hoped we had taught enough about whatsoever it good, etc. For the most part, they choose wisely. We made good use of our library and their borrowing system. Our son had read completely their whole section of non-fictions by the time he graduated from home school. Both my son and daughter are still avid readers.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Seriously! Worst book ever. Glad to see I'm not the only one who didn't like it!

    ReplyDelete
  9. That books is so creepy. I read it once with my daughter and hated it. Someone gave us a copy if it, as I never would have bought it. It's funny to me now that I thought I was the only one who hated this "popular" book. Glad I am not alone. :)

    ReplyDelete