And then something went BUMP!

Each month, Emily's teacher sends home a "Reado" card.  It's like bingo, only with reading activities that she's supposed to do with her parents.  Typical things would be: read a book by flashlight, read a story and discuss the setting, etc.

For October, one of the choices was "read a story with a spooky voice".  As we were thinking about good stories to read that way (somehow, "Farmer Boy" did't seem like the best choice), it occurred to me that the creepiest books to read that way would be the very early readers.  The repetition and simple words just lend themselves (out of context) to all sorts of psycho interpretations.  For example, "Are You My Mother?" may seem pretty innocuous, unless you've seen this Doctor Who episode.  You probably recognized the one from the title, but how many of the following can you identify?

1.  Up, down, up in the sky.  Swing low, swing high.  Bumpity, bumpity, hold on tight. Hush little baby, say goodnight.
2. Max's one word was BANG!
3. Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.
4. Bert held up the finger with a string still tied around it.  "We forgot the oatmeal!"
5. "I want my mommy!" said Bill.
6. "Have you seen my cat?"  "This is not my cat!" (repeated multiple times)
7. When she came to her son's house, if the lights were all out, she would climb up to his bedroom window, open it up, crawl across the floor...
8. Pat the bunny! (Pretend your name is Lennie for this one.)
9. Dum ditty dum ditty whack whack whack!
10. Frog pushed Toad out of bed.  He pushed him out of the house and onto the front porch.  Toad blinked in the bright sun. "Help!" said Toad. "I cannot see anything."