(gentle music) - [Narrator] Children's
books are usually filled with fantastical characters
going on amazing adventures, all to teach kids wonderful
lessons about life. But sometimes, a classic kids story can strike you as really weird,
or even a bit disturbing. Like fairy tales with
super freaky origins, and old cautionary stories that take punishments way too far. So, are you still sitting comfortably? Because we're about to take a look at some of the darkest, weirdest, and most shocking children's tales that you won't believe are real. (upbeat music) "The Tomboy Who Changed into a Real Boy." For parents in the 1800s, nothing was more daunting
than having a little girl who didn't want to act like a little girl. And it was this that led to the creation of "Little Miss Consequence" back in 1880. It's a book aimed at young girls, filled with cautionary
stories about bad manners, like "The Tomboy who
Changed into a Real Boy," and that title may seem
pretty self-explanatory, but the story goes into some seriously disturbing details. It follows the daughter of an earl, who really doesn't want to act like a prim and proper young lady. So, instead of learning boring embroidery, she goes off sledding, climbing trees, and playing football with the boys, and that doesn't exactly
sound like a big issue, except, as punishment
for her boyish actions, she mysteriously begins to
look and sound like a boy. Her voice grows hoarse,
her physique looks rougher, until one day she suddenly
transforms into a real boy down in the pants department. Now, I'm no doctor, but I'm fairly certain
that's not how this works. Though the story doesn't end there. After the transformation, her mortified parents
pay off a ship's captain to take her on as a sailor, and she's shipped off to sea,
never to be heard from again! This may have been written to try and stop girls acting like boys, but now it just reads like a
tragic tale of bad parenting. "Outside Over There." Maurice Sendak was an
author who was adored for writing and illustrating
dreamlike children's books, such as "Where the Wild Things Are" and "In the Night Kitchen." But his story "Outside Over
There" was less like a dream, and more like a nightmare. Ida, our young heroine, is left at home to watch her baby sister. But as she whimsically plays her horn, evil, faceless goblins
sneak in and steal the baby, leaving a terrifying replacement
made of ice in her cradle. And if you thought the face of that thing was harrowing enough, believe me, it gets worse. Later, when Ida picks up the child, the icy infant horrifyingly
melts through her fingers. Despite being traumatised, Ida bravely sets off to rescue her sister and eventually carries her home again. I guess there's nothing like
a classic baby snatching story to lull a child to sleep. "Rebecca, Who Slammed Doors for
Fun and Perished Miserably." We've all slammed a door
at least once in our lives, whether it's out of anger, frustration, or just to make someone jump. But according to Hilaire Belloc's "Cautionary
Tales for Children," which was published back in 1907, slamming a door could be
the last thing you ever do. The poetic tale of "Rebecca,
Who Slammed Doors for Fun and Perished Miserably" is a title that, horrendously, doesn't leave much to the imagination. Rebecca was a spoilt child who enjoyed slamming doors
to startle her uncle. But one day, she slammed a door that had a heavy marble bust above it. As you can guess, the bust fell,
(Rebecca screaming) and, as the story puts it, "it laid her out, just like that." The tale then morbidly
cuts to her funeral, where the pastor uses her
tragic passing as a warning to all the kids who've turned up to mourn their friend. I mean, should they
really be blaming the kid, or the idiot who put
that heavy marble bust above a door in the first place? Well, if you don't want
to end up like Rebecca, instead of slamming doors, you should slam those like
and subscribe buttons. I can guarantee that no
matter how hard you slam them, no marble busts will drop on your head. Now, what weird story have we got next? "The Little Mermaid." "The Little Mermaid" that
most kids know and love is Disney's adorable film
adaptation made back in 1989. It follows the story of a young mermaid who falls in love with a human prince. Desperate to be with him, she leaves her family and makes a deal with an evil sea witch, trading her voice for
a pair of human legs. Through trials and tribulations, the two eventually fall
in love, get married, and live happily ever after. However, Disney missed
out a few key details from the original, harrowing
story it's based on, which was written by
Danish children's author Hans Christian Andersen back in 1837. For a start, before the mermaid trades
her voice for her legs, she's warned that every
single step she takes will be filled with pure agony. In fact, the book describes it brutally as "like walking on knives." But that's not all. Even though the prince
does fall in love with her, he's cruelly forced into
an arranged marriage with another girl. Heartbroken and in constant pain, the mermaid's sisters
then pop out of the water, having traded all their
hair with the witch for a magical knife. Can you guess what she
has to do with the knife in order to break the spell? If you guessed assassinate
the love of her life as he lays on his marriage bed, you're completely right! But she just can't bring herself to do it, and instead, she throws
herself into the ocean and inexplicably dissolves
immediately into sea foam. So, there's no true love,
and no happily ever after, just a cheap and efficient funeral. Maybe Hans Christian Andersen should have called this story "The Little Mermaid
Learns Life Isn't Fair." "The Little Match Girl." Because writing one tragic story about a young girl meeting her end just wasn't enough for
Hans Christian Andersen, he wrote another in the form
of "The Little Match Girl." It's about a child who's so poor, she sells matches to
strangers in the street on a snowy New Year's Eve. But it's so cold, she begins to light them one
by one to keep herself warm. In the glow of the flames, she suddenly experiences
vivid hallucinations, where she sees a big holiday
feast, a Christmas tree, and even the face of her late grandma. Thoughtlessly, she begins
burning all the matches to keep her grandma from fading away. And the next morning, strangers find the girl
frozen in the street with a smile on her face. Wow, nothing like a bedtime story based on poverty and hypothermia to give your kids good dreams. "Cinderella." Cinderella is another
well-loved Disney film about a princess who finds her prince with the help of talking animals, a flamboyant fairy godmother, and a pair of impossibly small feet. But the original story it's based on ain't no family friendly fairy tale. You see, the Brothers Grimm
first put the tale to paper back in 1812, under the
name "Aschenputtel." Like their name suggests, this German duo produced a
variety of gritty fairy tales that were the opposite of
Disney in almost every way. For a start, in "Aschenputtel," there aren't any magic fairy godmothers going "bibbidi-bobbidi-boo." Instead, the heroine has a magic tree that she's grown on her mother's grave by watering it with her tears. Now, the tree provides her
with whatever she needs, but that's still insanely depressing, though it gets worse. In Disney's story, the prince
tries to find Cinderella by having all the maidens
in the land try on a shoe she left behind at the ball. However, Cinderella's cruel
stepmother locks her away so one of her own two
daughters might be chosen. Try as they might, the shoe doesn't fit, and Cinderella wins. But in "Aschenputtel," this
scene gets seriously gory. To make her foot fit in the tiny shoe, the first stepsister
slices off her big toe. But upon seeing the
mangled state of her foot, the prince realizes she's not the one. So, the shoe is presented
to the second stepsister, who cuts off her heel
to make her foot fit. However, her ploy doesn't work, either. Eventually, the small-footed
Aschenputtel slips on the shoe and rides off into the
sunset with Prince Charming. But the brutality doesn't stop there. On Aschenputtel's wedding day, the stepsisters fake their
kindness towards her, in order to get on the good
side of the future princess. But as they're walking down the aisle, they have their eyes
pecked out by angry pigeons for all their wickedness. Ooh, no wonder Disney made all those cuts! "The Strange Feast." The Brothers Grimm didn't just write strange
stories about princesses, although their tale of "The
Strange Feast" is so odd that it'll definitely leave
you scratching your head. In it, there are two sausages,
one blood and one liver, who are friends. The blood sausage invites the
liver sausage over for dinner, but when the liver sausage arrives, she sees some disturbing
things on the stairs, like a broom and shovel
fighting, and an injured monkey. She asks the blood
sausage what's going on, but he ignores her and
goes to prepare their meal. Suddenly, the liver sausage hears a voice, telling her she's in a trap
and that she must escape. She flees quickly, but
when she turns around, she sees the blood sausage
with a sharp knife, yelling, "If I had caught you,
I would have had you!" As much of a trip as that story was, I'm not sure which part confused me more, the anthropomorphised sausages, or the suggestion of sausage cannibalism. "Struwwelpeter." You may think that the
Brothers Grimm win the award for the most messed-up kids tales, but there's another German author who could easily claim that title. Heinrich Hoffman was a physician who penned many moral tales for children back in the 19th century, but his most famous stories by far were those in his book "Struwwelpeter." In English, that roughly
translates to Shock-Headed Peter, and when you look at
the cover illustration, you can see why. But the merry stories and fun
pictures this book promises are actually gruesome
lessons in etiquette. The story of Struwwelpeter
himself, for example, is about a young boy who
never bathed, cut his nails, or combed his hair. But the punishment for
his slovenly appearance was incredibly cruel. Quite bluntly, Peter was
unloved by everyone around him. I guess this helped German mothers convince their kids to bathe, but was the threat of eternal
loneliness really necessary? Well, kids, make sure you
have good personal hygiene, or no one will ever love you. Goodnight! "Little Suck-a-Thumb." Another of Hoffman's horrifying
"Struwwelpeter" stories is "Little Suck-a-Thumb," which is, without a doubt, the most gruesome tale in the entire book. It follows a young boy called Konrad who, despite his mother's requests, won't stop sucking his thumbs. She warns him that a terrifying figure called the great Tall Tailor will come to cut off his
thumbs if he doesn't stop, but he doesn't listen. So, the gangly figure of
the Tall Tailor turns up with a terrifyingly large pair of scissors and makes good on his mother's promise by cutting off both the boy's thumbs. You'd think his mother
would be distraught, considering a creepy man
just mutilated her son. But, no, she effectively says Konrad just got what he deserved. The end! This terrifying tale was clearly designed
to scare young children into breaking their thumb-sucking habits back in the 19th century, but it's so horrifying by modern standards that it actually served as inspiration for Tim Burton's disturbingly gothic film "Edward Scissorhands," although I wouldn't want
to suck on those thumbs, if I were you. "The Cry Baby." Now, Hoffman didn't just
write morbid moral stories for a German audience. His book "Slovenly Betsy" was marketed to parents
in the United States as "The American Struwwelpeter." And unfortunately for American kids, it was just as horrifying. One story was written about a young girl who just won't stop crying. Her mother berates her for
tearing up unnecessarily and warns her that if she
keeps crying, she'll go blind. That's some questionable
parenting, right there. Understandably upset
by her mother's words, the girl keeps crying until she notices her eyesight
is, in fact, getting worse. Scared and confused, she
gets even more upset. But suddenly, she realizes it's not tears dripping from her eye socket, but her actual eyes. She literally cries her eyes out! Well, the story ends
with Hoffman telling kids to try and be cheerful
all day, and just not cry. That's right, kids, swallow that sadness
and plaster on a smile, or your eyes will drip
out of their sockets like big, gooey marshmallows. "Phoebe Ann, the Proud Girl." Another horrendous Hoffman
story from "Slovenly Betsy" follows this unfortunate-looking
girl, called "Phoebe Ann." Although with those
big-headed proportions, she looks more like a smug
mushroom than a young girl. Anyway, Phoebe Ann's supposed
sin is having too much pride. She sticks up her nose all the time, thinking she's better than everything and everyone around her. So much so, that she won't
even look at the ground. But she holds her head so high that it begins to stretch
her neck out freakishly, until she's left looking like a giraffe. And she still refuses to look down. That's until her neck becomes
too weak to support her head, and she's forced to push
her noggin around on a wagon for the rest of her days. I'm no scientist, but I'm fairly certain that
just holding your head up doesn't cause your neck
to stretch like taffy. "The Little Glutton." Snacking, grazing, and boredom eating are all habits that are
really hard to break. But if you do find it hard
to put down the snacks, you'll probably empathize
with the next poor kid that horrendous old Hoffman wrote about. In a story called "The Little Glutton," there's a young girl called Mary who just can't stop snacking. She sneaks food from the pantry
morning, noon, and night, and even though she's
told off by her mother, she just can't stop eating. Until one day, she spots some beehives and has the bright idea
to stick her hand in and scoop out the delicious honey. Apparently, no-one taught Mary that messing with bees is a bad idea, and she's immediately
swarmed by the entire hive. Stung from head to toe,
she's bedridden for weeks, and, in a weirdly cruel
move by her parents, is only fed medicine. But this apparently puts a stop
to her constant need to eat, meaning she's cured! Although cured might
be the wrong word here. How about traumatized or scarred for life? "The Green Ribbon." The story of "The Green Ribbon" is nestled inside a kids book called "In A Dark, Dark Room
and Other Scary Stories" by Alvin Schwartz. Well, this doesn't sound ominous at all. The tale starts off innocently enough with a little girl named Jenny, who makes friends with
a boy called Alfred. He notices that Jenny always wears a green
ribbon around her neck, and when he asks her why she wears it, she answers cryptically,
"Someday, I'll tell you." The two grow up, fall in
love, and get married, but despite Alfred's constant questioning, Jenny never reveals why
she wears the ribbon. That is, until one day, when
she gets very, very sick, and is told by the
doctor that she is dying. Nice light theme for a
children's book, there. So, she beckons Alfred to her side, and tells him he can
finally untie the ribbon. But when he does, his wife's
head tumbles to the ground. It turns out, he's been married to a headless
zombie all these years! Now, first of all, what the hell, Jenny? You tricked Alfred into
marrying an undead corpse? That's horrific! And as for Alfred, how did he never notice that
his wife's head was loose? If it was only being held on by a ribbon, surely, he must have seen
her adjust it once or twice. Did he really not notice? Or maybe he was just
into that kind of thing. "Coraline." Many of you probably know "Coraline" as the stop-motion fantasy
film released back in 2009. But this story actually
started out as a kids book written by Neil Gaiman, an author renowned for his
nightmare-inducing writing. And even though it's a children's book, "Coraline" is no exception to this. For those who don't know the story, it features a young girl named Coraline who moves into a new
house with her family, where she finds a mysterious, tiny door. It leads to a parallel universe
where the food is amazing, the adults pay attention to her, and she essentially has
everything she could ever want. The only disturbing difference is that the people in this world all have buttons for eyes, but, for some reason,
this doesn't bother her. That is, until she learns
about the price she must pay to stay in this world. She, too, has to sew
buttons into her eyes. And when she refuses, as anyone
in their right mind would, she's kidnapped and trapped with the ghosts
of three button-eyed children, who once clearly took the deal. It turns out the main
villain, called the Beldam, quickly gets bored of
the children it traps, leaving them to starve. But Coraline eventually
outsmarts the Beldam and escapes, removing its right hand in the process. Now, I'm all for a scary kids stories, but the sheer amount of mutilation in this tale is terrifying. And on top of that, I think I just developed
a deep fear of buttons. "Goosebumps." True 90s kids will remember
the sleepless nights reading a Goosebumps book would bring. This series was created back in 1992 by children's author R.L Stein, but his empire of family-friendly terror contained some seriously
questionable tales. Let's start with "Night
of the Living Dummy," which follows two old, creepy-looking ventriloquists' dummies that are picked up by
a pair of twin girls. While the twins argue over who
the better ventriloquist is, one of the puppets comes to life. But he claims the two
girls are now his slaves and tries to choke the family dog. Like puppets weren't
creepy enough already! The girls eventually destroy him, but for a kids book, the sinister overtones of
slavery and animal cruelty are pretty unsettling at any age. Although, several other "Goosebumps" books take horror to much weirder depths, like the painfully punny "Bad Hare Day." It tells the story of a kid
who wants to learn magic, so he steals a box of tricks
from his favorite magician. But, to his horror, one of them accidentally turns
his sister into a rabbit. Ashamed, he seeks out the
magician to turn her back, only to discover that the real
magician is a talking rabbit who got cursed by a sorcerer long ago. The rabbit then offers the boy a chance to be in his new act, but when the boy accepts,
can you guess what happens? Yep! He, too, is turned into
a fluffy white rabbit! Personally, I don't see what's so scary about being turned into a rabbit, unless you're allergic to carrots. But it gets even weirder, and stickier, in the choose-your-own-adventure book, "Beware the Purple Peanut Butter." In it, you, the reader,
are playing hide and seek, when you get hungry, and decide to snack on
some weird, purple goo you found in an old refrigerator. But the strange slime
suddenly shrinks you down, and you're faced with being
locked in the ice box, being flushed down the toilet, or fighting a big mouse. I think I'd take the mouse
over the toilet any day. How about you? Somehow, the series gets even stickier in the "Monsterblood Saga." These books follow the evil
trail of a thick, sentient slime as it consumes everything in its path, including people and animals. It also has the power to
turn animals like hamsters into ferocious, gorilla-sized goons, and it even becomes an
aquatic military super weapon that multiplies when
it's exposed to water. Yikes! I wouldn't want to be sat on
that toilet when they attacked. But the creepy crown jewel
of the "Goosebumps" series has got to be "The Curse
of Camp Cold Lake," if not for that disturbing
cover art alone. It follows a young girl who really, really hates her summer camp, mainly because there's someone watching and stalking her every move. One by one, her camp mates
meet awful, deadly fates, until one day she does, too. Like trying to get kids to go to camp wasn't hard enough already. "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark." Almost a decade before "Goosebumps" started offing children
with creepy dummies and mysterious purple goo, Alvin Schwartz wrote a children's book that makes full grown men
cry for their mommies. "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" is a collection of 82
truly terrifying tales, which you can tell just by
looking at that cover art. It was all powered by Stephen Gammell's
ghastly illustrations, which were nightmarishly unforgettable, like those in the classically
unnerving story of "Harold." It begins with two farmers
innocently building a scarecrow that they name Harold, but they begin to use him as
an outlet for their anger. They do horrible things to the scarecrow, although unbeknownst to them, Harold has actually turned into
a very vengeful human being. And what's his payback? Why, he skins the farmers and spreads them out to
bake in the sun, of course! Ugh! Although, if you thought that was grisly, it's nothing compared
to "The Haunted House." This story starts off with a preacher spending a night in a house where no one has ever stayed, because it's supposedly haunted. He begins to hear footsteps
when, all of a sudden, this haggard ghost of a woman wanders in and nearly frightens him to death. Well, I won't spoil the ending for you, by which I mean, after seeing that, I'm too scared to finish the story. With those illustrations, these tales are just too
disturbing to read in the day, never mind in the dark! Which of these books do
you think should be banned from the kids section of the library? Have you read any others that still give you
nightmares to this day? Let me know down in the comments below, and thanks for watching. (upbeat music)
