Why I hate the Little Miss books

The forthcoming film may be lovely, but Roger Hargreaves’ Little Misses are even harder work than the Mr Men, as I found to my cost when I read them to my toddler

The news that film rights in the Mr Men and Little Miss books have been sold to Fox Animation has thrown me back to a much-regretted decision made shortly before the birth of my second daughter in 2013. Full of plans to occupy the big daughter, I stumbled across a box set of all the Little Miss books, and decided it would be perfect. I had vaguely positive memories of the Mr Men books from my own childhood; the illustrations are brilliant; and they all came in a box with a sliding drawer that I thought would keep her busy for hours.

It turns out that my well-intentioned choice of Little Misses over Mr Men was a poor one. Settled on the sofa for the first of many, many, many feeding sessions, I promised that every time I was thus occupied, I’d read a story. We started with Little Miss Lucky. This is a summary: Little Miss Lucky, clad in a blue-checked hat, lives in Horseshoe Cottage. One windy night, she is locked out of her house, blown away and chased by a walking tree. But it’s OK – it was all a dream! Isn’t she lucky? NO! This makes no sense; it is not an example of luck.

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