29 June 2009

Kettle-Head!

A few days ago, I was directed to The Story of Little Kettle-Head by a reader and former timid librarian called Sean, who opined “it changed my life”... Well, Sean, I’m not sure it changed my life exactly, but it certainly messed up my head – even more so than Little Kettle-Head’s head gets messed up. And, as you can probably guess from her name, that’s pretty fucking messed up. (Sorry, swear-box, owe you 10p.)

If you find My First Dictionary disturbing, funny or disturbingly funny, then I urge you to try Little Kettle-Head’s adventures for size, along with those of Pat (and the Spider!) and Little Black Sambo, as well as anything by their seriously twisted author, Helen Bannerman. They’re all archived on a website called Sterling Times, which I’ve yet to investigate fully but which is quite clearly brilliant. In fact, the only reason I haven’t blogrolled it is because, well... it’s not a blog.

11 comments:

weenie_elise said...

I love little black sambo... I always wanted to eat pancakes afterwards...

anyz said...

i enjoyed Kettle-head as well.
someone recommended me other (German) scary stories by Heinrich Hoffman. You can find the entry in this topic here: http://venetianred.net/2009/06/17/the-dastardly-and-delicious-spell-of-struwwelpeter/

anyz said...

and in case you dont know it, you can download the whole thing fron here: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12116
enjoy

anyz said...

duuh, better version here: http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/read.jsp?id=451
;)

Unknown said...

My parents used to read me Little Black Sambo as a child and it provides some incredibly useful life lessons like "Don't talk to naked, Pikey Tigers" and "To cure yourself of tigers, turn them into milk".

You can't buy it now 'cause it's apparently racist.

Kat said...

Re: Struwwelpeter

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!! That brings back horrible childhood memories... Thanks German grandmother for reading those to me!

Sian xoxo said...

Ugh my Nan read me the Struwwelpeter book *shudders*

Love this site and Kettle head!

If your a fan of horror films mixed with kids TV check this lil video out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f7jIrJkRSc

Alex said...

See what happens with socialized medicine?

Anonymous said...

Little Black Sambo was one of my favorite childhood stories. My mother managed to find me a beaten up copy of it one year for Christmas. I even remember a restaurant chain named 'Sambo's.'

Anonymous said...

I used to eat at Sambo's all the time when I was a kid (1970's). Pancakes with butter - - hmmmm yummmmmm! They had murals all over the walls, the illustrations from the book. hilarious.

Alistair Coleman said...

Just checked at home. Two (count 'em) copies of Little Black Sambo.