Childhood.

In the pantheon of American myths, it ranks up there with the the pilgrims (assholes) and Intelligent Design. Glenn Beck can cry for his bygone formative years that never were, and Concerned Mothers can bitch endlessly about teenage wizards and slutty vampire slayers, but anyone in-the-know will tell you that there’s nothing truly safe or protected about being a kid. Children are just miniature adults, which means they can be deceitful, manipulative, greedy, and treacherous — I’d wager there’s likely a Rhoda in-the-wings inside every elementary school classroom — and if you’ve ever grown up with a Baby Jane of a sibling, you had a real reason to hide under the bed and perfect your best 911 call.

Even fairy tales are full of all manner of fuckery — Little Red Riding Hood had more in store for her from the Wolf’s Big Bad than just being eaten — and just as creepy children’s programming will often years later develop cults of scarred adults who get thrills from revisiting their childhood traumas, so too are children’s books far more than just lame pretexts for actresses to brand themselves authors.

As Huffington Post’s feature The Creepiest Children’s Books Ever demonstrates, you might be surprised at the frightful array of literature devoted to the wonders of kids’ bowel movements and urine streams. What better gift for your niece or nephew than a tome chronicling the marvelous odyssey of sperm or an omnibus detailing the hilarity of awkward boners? Can you really say your bookshelf is complete if it doesn’t feature a secondhand copy of I Wish Daddy Didn’t Drink So Much? And isn’t your world that much more fearful knowing that there’s a September 11th coloring book out there virally exchanging hands like that video from The Ring?

Angst and neuroses are treatable, but The Terror of Tiny Town? It’s forever in our hearts.

© 2010, Shawn Baker. All rights reserved. Nightcharm.com