What were they thinking? or Fridge Horror in Children's Lit

Do you ever go back and read children's lit (or young adult lit) with adult eyes and just get hit with a Fridge Horror moment because there's something there that is really kind of terrible but you didn't see it that way as a kid?

I work at an elementary school library and it's book fair season so every class has been watching this preview video with movie-trailer type ads for some of the most popular books. I've seen the thing about 30 times and I've been having some serious Fridge Horror moments.

For example, there was this ad for Wild Life by Cynthia De Felice giving me problems. It's apparently about a boy whose parents are both military and get deployed to Iraq at the same time so he's sent to his grandparents' house and he hates it, especially when he finds a stray dog that his grandparents won't let him keep... so he decides to run away and try to survive on his own in the wilderness. What kind of message is that? It strikes me as pretty Fridge Horror to be telling kids that running away is the answer to being told No, plus both parents are front line soldiers with more than enough to worry about already. That's not only incredibly dangerous, but pathologically selfish.

And another in the same video was for the book and game series Infinity Ring and the trailer basically says these kids have to go back in time and change history to undo the changes that their government has made. So yeah, the first few times that didn't strike me as anything particularly odd, typical children's time travel adventure, right? Well around the tenth viewing or so, it hit me that the whole reason these kids have to change history is for no other reason than that its different. And YMMV, but messages about striving for the status quo and not asking why about anything, - that's Fridge Horror to me.

Heh, I recall the time I wrote the beginnings of a children's book where a Heroic Lovecraftian Horror For Kids accidentally ruins the time space continuum with a magic Tamagotchi trying to watch all future episodes of Pokemon back in 1998. He ends up seeing the interrupted broadcast where 9/11 took Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z off the air, so he prevents that from happening but when he gets back the world's turned into 199X and it's videogame/cartoon Roger Rabbit land all of a sudden because the Old One Expies like to take the form of video game/cartoon characters to avoid driving the humans mad.

And yes, the reason why I ever thought it was a children's instead of a YA book was that it was part of a bet to see how I could pull off such a dark story without any swears in it. Dr Seuss books started from similar origins. Bets, I mean, not swear jars.

Those books you listed seem like they're not using their "ruin future history" plot well. When I've come up with some actual ramifications for such a plot in my basement as a yet unpublished auteur, that's pretty sad considering that Children's Lit is meant to explore ramifications of things for young minds.

Theres the infamous Alfies home.....

A Wrinkle In Time was pretty ghastly. When I was a kid, it scared me enough that I never read the rest of the Time Quartet series — although I might remedy it eventually, it was a good book after all. I just read it when I was too little.

Eh, I barely remember that book, but I don't think it was scary. The hyperspace thing was kinda interesting though.

The hyperspace thing yes, but the mind control at the end creeped me out a lot. Then again, I was very little at the time.

To be honest, I still seem to find the concept of mind control, hypnosis and so on creepier than other people do, and perhaps that book is part of the reason...

edited 11th Dec '12 6:36:54 AM by Carciofus

Ah. Perfectly understandable.

Not literature, but the ending of Digimon Adventure 02. Everyone on Earth gets a Digimon.

Everyone.

Now imagine what, say, Saddam Hussein or someone just like him could do with a Machinedramon...

I read a picture book that advocated veganism. Overall it was pretty good, except for the bit at the end where it encouraged readers to feed their pets vegan food. I really hope kids who read it don't have pet dogs or cats...

I have a nonfiction book that was published by American Girl; it might have been Help! A Girl's Guide to Tricky, Sticky, Icky Situations. One of these situations it mentions concerns what to do if there's a storm, and gives the usual 'stay tuned to your local news on TV or the radio for reports', 'stay away from windows; don't sit there and watch it', etc. I seem to recall a sketch of a girl curled up in a chair, reading a book by flashlight in the dark next to a TV with the words 'SEVERE WEATHER' or something like that on the screen, with the caption 'The lights may go out due to the storm, so turn on your TV so that you know about the storm'.

It's not exactly Fridge Horror, but I am left wondering, years and years after that book was published, how many girls read that line and still think in their hearts to this day that storms will only knock out electricity to the lights.

Or ferrets.

I had that book too (and I still think I do. Probably somewhere under my bed.) got me extremely paranoid about severe weather for god knows how long.

"Love You Forever" seems kinda creepy to me now. I mean, the mom sneaks into her FULL GROWN son's room and rocks him to sleep. God...

This one's not quite fridge horror, but if I ever see this example again I'll get particulary squicked. There used to be a nonfiction children's book about sharks at my house as well (rather thick but was worded for children to understand). At one point it talks about famous shark attacks and there's some rather...gory photos for one victim before and after getting their skin stitched back together. You can't just put gore like that in a children's book!

edited 27th Dec '12 8:28:16 AM by Explosivo25

Most of the horrific books from my childhood are ones that I like because their horrificness, so there's not all that much fridge in my horror, really.

Also: Hey, Wrinkle in Time! That book was awesome.

edited 5th Jan '13 10:04:25 AM by Benluke

Believe it or not, I do too. I have a couple, actually.

As a kid I received a kid's book on Greek Mythology, and loved it and became very fond of the myths. I didn't turn out too warped, but as an adult now... I have to ask, who deliberately writes these books aimed at children? Who would ever think stories about rape, murder, cannibalism, incest, war, and torture are appropriate for small kids? This kids' book of mine is not sanitized or rewritten to downplay or remove those events, it merely makes the sex a bit less explicit. It's... pretty disturbing that it was written for children.

Same with Fairy Tales... who seriously reads those things to their children?

edited 17th Jan '13 9:14:45 PM by ArcadesSabboth

People who don't underestimate children, that's who.

... telling five-year-olds stories about violent rape and torture? You think that's appropriate? Wow.

That's nothing. My elementary school library had a big illustrated book of Norse myths. Some of the illustrations were pretty graphic, especially the ones where Fenrir bites off Tyr's hand.

Was there at least a funny picture of Thor disguised as a woman?

No, but they illustrated pregnant horse!Loki.

So long as it's not glorified and not projected as "right", than I don't think it here's anything wrong with it.

Seriously, I find stories and media that has a wrong message (White supremacist propaganda by something like the Prussian Blue for example) far more inappropriate, even if they depict no murder or torture or gore, because it is values determine what kind of adults the kids will turn into.

In fact, I'd argue that if the violence is depicted as horrifying, it is good for the kids because that way they will learn that it is horrifying.

edited 20th Jan '13 10:00:18 PM by IraTheSquire