Cruel as all childrens books used to be

One of my favorite childhood books, but then again, I was not a thumb sucker. I'll never forget the day my mother visited my kindergarten class and I brought my favorite book, struwwelpeter, for her to read to the class. One little girl ran crying out of the room as my mother read the little tommy suck a thumb story-it turns out this little girl was a thumb sucker, and was very frightened at the thoughts of a man with big scissors coming to cut off her thumbs. Clearly this book is not for the timid child. But for those who are tough enough to handle it, these stories are imaginative and frightful and engaging. ( )

Please do not give this book to a child. A friend of mine had the German version (our parents were German speakers) and it gave me nightmares. I bought it for my daughter when she was about 12, and she said it scared her.

This translation is apparently abridged.

Other than inducing nightmares in susceptible children, it's wonderfully Victorian and a strong antidote to Tiny Tim.

It's hard not to burst into xenophobic raptures when contemplating this bizarre little book. I mean, where else could a children's book of such an austere and humourless moral tone have originated than nineteenth century Germany? Have you heard the story of Harriet who played with matches? She BURNS TO DEATH! What should happen to naughty Conrad who sucks his thumbs when his mother isn't looking? The Long Legged Scissor Man leaps out of a door and CUTS HIS THUMBS OFF WITH A HUGE PAIR OF SHEARS, OF COURSE! And what of Augustus, who wouldn't eat his soup? HE STARVES TO DEATH! Naturally!

The only thing more ghastly than reading this to your lovely child as she or he is tucked up in bed is reading it in the original German: fear not if you don't understand German; in fact it's even better that way: far more scary!

And all illustrated in the most grotesque fashion, sure to surprise, delight and permanently derange even the most pleasantly disposed child.

Well, it never did me any harm... ( )

There is a political version of this book published in the ominous year 1848, and an English translation by Mark Twain, which he did for his own children while traveling in Germany with his family, and then found a publisher for. I only remember the straight version in our children's room in the early 1940s. It was so engrained in German middle class culture, that apparently the Hitler regime could not dare to ban it. I recall it here for its St. Nicholas episode, in which a white boy naively taunting a brown-skinned visitor gets punished rather drastically, in terms of today's defendants' rights, by St. Nicholas dunking him in a pitch-black inkwell. ( )