I think all of the Grimm Fairy Tale-type stories are horrible - extremely creepy and demented!  Especially....

"The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats: A Fairy Tale"

I remember this from when I was a kid, don't know if anyone gives it to their kids any more.  It's a story about a wolf that eats a bunch of baby goats.  The mother goat finds the wolf and in his sleep, she cuts open his belly, frees her kids, and then sews a bunch of rocks into the wolf's belly.   Seriously not right!

Does anyone else remember this story?   

Fly Guy is gross at times, but it's not offensive.  Kids (and adult males) go through stages where snot, garbage, and smelly things are funny.  Some never leave it (guilty).  I haven't read any of them so far that have a bad message.  My Mom approves of them (English teacher) I think mainly because of the word content and sentence structure for young readers.  Exactly why Dr. Seuss was a genius. 

The kids books that I don't like are the ones where the words are misspelled on purpose.  I get a little angry seeing them in school book fair lists.  Kids first learn to read by learning sight words, so if you put the wrong word up there, you're being counterproductive.  Not to mention it teaches that it's ok to misspell words.

i'm THAT AUNT that buys my niece captain underpants books.  being an aunt is the BEST.

Goofy reading, but why the "detest"?

The boy is allowed Captain Underpants as long as he's also reading a real chapter book.  If anything, it's taught him that there is a time and a place to discuss certain topics.  Alone with Dad, bathroom humor is fine (and may or may not be encouraged).  In front of his younger sister, it's not.

Anything Sponge Bob.

I actually like the Grimm tales (yes I remember the wolf goat story).  I'm a pretty easy critic though.  As long as it isn't just mindless and stupid (see sponge bob) I'm down with it.  Captain underpants isn't my cup o tea, but I see why my daughter likes it.  Regarding toddler books, I find it difficult to go much outside Dr Seuss.  Most other toddler books are kind of "bleh".  Dr Seuss is the greatest writer that ever lived, IMO.

I actually enjoy the books a step further up just for myself: Harry Potter, City of Bones, Twilight, etc.....

that kid in your pic with underpants on his head?  i'd say he IS captain underpants.

This is a fave of mine... best when read by Samuel L Jackson... all the kids love it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CseO1XRYs9I

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter

These makes Grimm's stories look like sunshine and puppies. 

"The Rainbow Fish" - teaching children have to give into peer pressure and give away things that are rightly theirs just to make other people like them...

Read it once to my daughter then thew it in the garbage...

Guess I should clarify my x2.  My boy is 5 and just starting to read, so he really won't be ready for them for a couple of years (even though he points them out every time there's a book fair). I love being the one to do "poopypants" humor with him. It's MY job, right? Not ready for a book series to take on that role.

Plus, my previous classroom experience with it was 6-8 graders trying to write book reports on them. Rarely was a student actually at that reading level...even though their humor is. 

Agree, weird message when I read it to our daughter as well.  There is also an Elmo Triathlon book that someone purchased for her because of my obvious hobby - got to the last page and Elmo and the other 2 monsters in the race all tied for 1st place in the triathlon ... Oh yea ...

I was at the Y the other day waiting for one of my kids to get out of the locker room.  I picked up a Scooby Doo book...it was for little kids.  It was less than 20 pages long but the entire thing was Shaggy and Scooby eating pizza, cheeseburgers, ice cream, pizza, candy (seriously, on every page)...it was just ridiculous.  There was no story...just, "we're hungry," so they go and gorge themselves at a fast food place. 

Don't get me wrong, one or two scenes of them chowing down during the tv show is fine, but an entire book of them basically doing competitive eating just seemed wrong.

Honestly, we're a pro-Fly Guy family.  C'mon, a pet fly?  How great is that?  

It's like the writer took a handful of kid theme templates and just threw them at a wall and picked three. So far they all seem just as lazily written to me.

Agreed.  Absolutely the worst message for a children's book  any story, ever.

I call it the Children's Guide to Forced Socialism