the lonely doll
It was a big hardcover book with a pretty pink gingham cover, but when I opened it up it was filled with black and white photos of a world strangely shrunken to exactly the right size for a doll and two teddy bears.
At the beginning, Edith the Doll was lonely. At the end, the bears told Edith she would never be lonely again. Which somehow never struck me as exactly comforting. In fact, quite the reverse.
What books terrified you when you were a child?
30 comments:
Never scared of a book. For me, it was a magazine.
"Highlights for Children." Eek. The Timbertoes! All those stories about kids with allergies and suspiciously good poetry written by Jennifer, age 5, New York City.
@gretchen: Omigosh, you've just reminded me of one of the most scary experiences *ever* (which, since I was scared of just about everything, isn't saying all that much)
Anyway, in Highlights there was this "find the hidden picture" game. And one of the things you had to find was (cue spooky music) a witch! I was so scared by the thought of a hidden witch that I refused to look for her and put the magazine in my brother's room (who couldn't understand why I was being so uncharacteristically generous).
But that didn't stop the hidden witch from visiting me in my dreams every freaking night for the next month.
Tom's Midnight Garden. I remember reading this when I was supposed to have gone to bed and the rest of the house was very still and silent. The idea of the past happening all around me, of olde worlde children simultaneously occupying my space... *shudder*.
The Velveteen Rabbit scared me b/c 1) um, disease & 2) the idea of someone burning my beloved stuffed animal, Jason; I was terrified. The other book that creeped me out was The Secret Garden. Somehow, I could never buy the ghost kid as harmless. Gives me the willies even now thinking about it.
I think I remember that Lonely Doll book - it sounds terribly familiar.
I was frightened by a story in Cricket magazine about a little girl ghost, to the extent I couldn't sleep at night.
But I was even more scared by an episode of Scooby-Doo I saw on TV, which featured a scary green cat person with a flowing cape crouching in a window at night. I was CONVINCED he was waiting for me in my grandmother's parlor, just behind the folding doors.
I don't remember ever being scared by a story, but the picture of the doll you posted might give me nightmares!
I've always been pretty much insensitive to fear of fiction. My mom claims I was watching horror movies when I was a toddler. But, that doll is creepy!
Honestly, I don't remember being scared by a book when I was younger.
The Crying Of Lot 49. Though, I was probably 16, so, not a "child".
Was never afraid of a book or story, but always remember being afraid of dolls and clowns. Still am...
My dad's 1930s copy of strewwelpeter fairy tales was one that filled me with dread. The wiki page shows you the front cover but too scary to link!
The doll looks like my beloved Sascha doll- a rare late 60s item that actually matched our skin tone.
@Betty M: You're exactly right --it *is* my Sascha doll from the late 60s.
And I love, love, love Stewwelpeter. It has the best macabre flourishes.
Like the girl who plays with matches and burns to a crisp, except for her red asbestos shoes.
Or the boy who refuses to eat his soup and starves to death, ending up with the soup bowl perched on his grave.
I guess I'm scared of everything except things that are, y'know, actually scary.
Dolls scared me. Still do.
To this day, I cannot sleep with the closet door open, especially not a crack. Because of a Stephen King story I read when I was about 12 or 13. I probably should not have been reading such scary material, but I was a precocious child.
Babar the elephant. Dude. When his dad died from the mushrooms? HOW IS THAT FOR A KID?
my daughter LOVES the lonely doll books.
um, she is quite normal. i swear.
The Velvateen Rabbit. My mother loves it. I've never had the heart to tell her it has always scared the bajeezus out of me.
oh--"that was then this is now" scared the SHIT out of me. i was more of a pre-teen and not a small child, but the scene where m&m drops acid and wigs out freaked me out so bad i never, ever tried LSD. even during my Berkeley days. i was likely the only one person i knew in college who wouldn't try it.
i am a big nerd.
the snake in the jungle book movie terrified me, but it was nothing compared to that doll you've posted!
years of therapy for any child exposed to that one.
Not books, so much, but yes -- ahem, Scooby Doo. Also I do remember being afraid of, well, almost everything in my room especially as I was falling asleep. I had a bed with a canopy frame but no fabric onto which various (harmless) objects had been tied (many by me or at my request as I recall) about which I worried terribly.
As a parent, now, I'm torn between respecting my son's requests that I remove things (which ones varies, often objects with eyes, i.e., stuffed animals and toys) from his room as he falls asleep and suspecting that sometimes, he's just calling me back to his room on that pretext because ... it works. But mostly we seem for now to have struck a reasonable balance, thank goodness.
red pen mama - yes, yes. Me too. Stephen King's It scared the crap out of me, I read it when I was 12 or so. What can I say, I read everything that didn't move fast enough, from my mom's romance novels to my dad's war novels and military sci-fi. It was years, years before I could go to the bathroom at night without turning the light on. Urgh. Let us speak not of the clowns.
Where The Wild Things Are.
No books scared me but "Fantasia" gave me nightmares for weeks!
Sal's Girl
Mislead by an interesting, bright cover, I pulled 'A Clockwork Orange' off my mother's shelf and read it when I was about nine. The violence in that was really disturbing, at such a young age.
Is this the same doll that gets spanked by the bears? Complete with photos of it? *bemused* hard to imagine that one getting published these days.
The book that scared me witless when I was five was "The Teeny Tiny Woman" all about the title character who finds a bone in the woods with which she will make her soup, except she decides to take a nap (?) before cooking and then the VOICE comes, demanding that she GIVE HIM BACK HIS BONE. OhMyGosh. Horrifying.
@ellie: Absolutely. And I seem to recall that the spanking even involved a hairbrush. (though maybe I'm inventing that particular detail).
When I was young, my grandparents kept a pictorial Bible book at their house, where I stayed overnight frequently.
I used to know the story of Abraham and Isaac by heart, and would read it nightly. It was scary and comforting all at the same time.
The scariest part had to be the picture of Abraham holding the knife over Isaac while he was on the altar.
http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Lonely-Doll-Search/dp/0805076123
An amazing book. So is the Tin House article the book is based on.
(Loved The Lonely Doll. Was terrified of it. Moral: people who love you will spank you, even if you've just met them.)
Ooh, Niobe, I read all the Lonely Doll books when I was a kid. I had a doll with a pink gingham dress that made me think of her.
For the last several years, I've had two teddy bears sitting on my bed -- a big one & a little one. Dh once asked if they were supposed to be "us." I had a sudden flashback & thought, "Nope, they're Mr. Bear & Little Bear," lol.
There was an article about the books, & the author, in Vanity Fair several years ago.
I can't think offhand of any book that really scared me when I was a kid. I never did like the fairy tale of the Snow Queen, though -- the little boy held captive by the wicked Snow Queen, whose heart turned to ice.
Movies, now, that's another story...!
I don't remember books scaring me until I read Stephen King's The Shining ... but that doll up there in your post? I actually got one of those when I was 5, and she was My Favorite Doll Ever!
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