OMG, Alisande. These are hilarious in a creepy kind of way. Explains a lot about the French, at least the Parisians. "Troll de Dents". Ye gods. Must share this on FB. Thanks.

I wonder if we could dredge up a similar collection in English. Honestly, I never cared for "Where the Wild Things Are." (Sorry, Mr. Sendak.) But that seems pretty mild compared to some of the French ones. Maybe it's just a collection of little-known books. I can only hope and assume the French actually have wonderful children's books as we do here in the US.

They remind me of Edward Gorey. My favorite is the Gashlycrumb Tinies which is a rather macabre alphabet..........

"A is for Amy who fell down the stairs
B is for Basil assulted by bears........

and my personal favorite is "N is for Neville who died of ennui"

Here is a link that might be useful: Gashlycrumb Tinies - on you tube

Good point! We have some that are creepy on the surface, too. Even the Berenstain Bears had some pretty gruesome accidents such as crashing a bike into a chicken yard.

Little Red Riding Hood (wolf eats grandma and tries to eat child) and Hansel and Gretel (old witch lures children in so she can boil and eat them) come to mind as terrifying stories when I was little. But I admit, some of those French books do go a bit far.

Jodi-

Seems to be a few pedophile stealing children scenarios. And the one says her family laughs when she whacks him and escapes? Sheesh, weird.

One of my grandson's toys plays "Three Blind Mice:"

.....and they all ran after the farmer's wife
who cut off their tails with a carving knife....

Ugh!

One of my favorite books as a child was The Little Match Girl. I have no idea why, as it was terribly sad. Maybe the French are onto something. :-)

Just because something is disturbing to an adult doesn't mean it is disturbing to a child or bad for them. If you want to get some insights into the value of such things to children, there is a classic book by Bruno Bettelheim about this subject.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Uses of Enchantment

Der Struwwelpete (Slovenly Peter): http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/328

Talk about your terrifying children's books! The illustrations in the German version that a childhood friend had were much more gruesome than the translated version she also had. I can still remember the gist of many of the stories (parables?) to this day! Made quite the impression on me!

Yep, catmom, the struwelpeter is quite gruesome. I grew up with it, and got it for my children later.

I would also call the little red riding hood and Hansel and Gretel gruesome (also from Germany).

Moni

try reading the collection from the Brothers Grimm. Gruesome but I loved them as a child.

I can't wait to introduce my grand daughter to Russian fairy tales. Every child needs a dose of Baba Yaga.

Here is a link that might be useful: Baba Yaga

Didn't you all sing, "Three Blind Mice" when you were young?

I did.

o j

Still do, OJ! Somehow chopping tails of mice is pretty tame compared to what we really do to catch mice.