14 Children's Authors Who Were Way Weirder, Darker, Or More Problematic Than We Knew

We here at Cracked are, unfortunately, a little bit older than we used to be. And that means some of us have kids, which means (the responsible ones of us, at least) are reading to our kids. Unless we're tired and letting them have screen time, that is. Anyway, books are rad, and the process of aging and revisiting kids books with a new generation is really fun! Which prompted us to look up some facts and histories about some of our most beloved authors. And boy oh boy, was that a mistake. A grave, grave mistake. The internet loves to say something “ruined my childhood,” but we might not actually come back from this. Especially since our toddlers are running to their bookshelves right now, asking to read these awful, awful authors.

Don't worry: Beverly Cleary remains, as far as we can tell, an absolute saint. Mo Willems, too. That dude rules (please don't let these sentences milkshake duck, universe).