Want to depress your child?

Had enough of inspiring, interesting or enjoyable books for kids? Then why not embrace the most depressing and negative storybook ever? Presenting the ever-so-generically titled Stories for Children by Galley Press. Sadly, I can't find any information about it online. It's like the Internet is denying this book exists!

Originally published in Slovakia in the '80s, it's definitely chock full of Eastern European charm. Or is that doom and gloom? The collection definitely seems like the product of breadlines and bleak winter mornings. The stories - 25 of them, all doozies - feature a heck of a lot of depressing tragedy, even for fairy tales...

Take the tale The Musicans of Bremen (please!) for example... Based on the Grimm Brothers tale, it features a donkey that is about the be sent to the butcher, a dog lying in a ditch proclaiming he's not ready to die, an old cat who was nearly drowned and a rooster who barely dodged being made into soup. They eventually bust up a gang of robbers and end up living happily every after in an abandoned house. The concept of the story is good, but it's the overwhelming number of references to violent deaths that seem out of place for a children's tale. I can only imagine Cole asking "what does it mean when the rooster says the cook is going to wring his neck?"

All the stories are like that - even Little Red Riding Hood seemed exceedingly morose - the girl and her grandmother are both eaten and then ripped from the wolf's jaws, right before the woodsman stuffs stones down his throat! Intense... I thought I remembered Grandma getting hidden in a closet and then everyone scaring the wolf away?

I picked up this little gem at the Vancouver Public Library sale earlier in October, because it was $2 and because it looked somewhat promising. It's translated, so it reads a little oddly, and it's inscribed with crazy handwriting, 'Merry Christmas, from Babka." Jamie and I get a good laugh out of it, but it's pretty bleak. And it smells kind of dank.