A mother sent a note to her five-year-old daughter’s school after the child brought home a book containing what she described as a “harmful” message.
She revealed that she sent the book back to the school, and that authorities responded by taking it out of circulation in the classrooms.
Children’s books are meant to help youngsters better understand their feelings and learn valuable life lessons, including patience, the importance of facing one’s fears, and the power of community.
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Still, not all of them succeed in delivering a positive message to future generations.
A mother whose TikTok handle is @shrimpyvampy revealed her surprise after flicking through the pages of a book her daughter had picked up at school.
She said in a video, “So my five-year-old daughter came home from school with this book to read,” while showing viewers the front cover of Queen Aneena’s Feast by Julia Donaldson.
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Donaldson, 77, is a renowned British children’s author who also wrote The Gruffalo, Stick Man, and Room on the Broom.
Because the author is best known for her popular rhyming stories, the mother assumed the book would be a simple phonics exercise.
The story follows 15 queens who attend a feast, with each choosing different foods. One line that alarmed the mother reads, “Queen Jean had heaps of meat, Queen Nelly had heaps of jelly, but Queen Teeny Weeny did not eat.”
The concerned mother recounted, “So she reads that page and I’m like… ‘Sorry, what now?'”
Image credits: shrimpyvampy
Instead of letting her daughter finish the book, the mother continued reading it herself to make sure it was appropriate for her child.
On the following pages, Queen Teeny Weeny is offered vegetables and jelly but refuses both. When the other queens ask what she would like to eat, she replies, “One leaf. One green leaf.”
After eating the green leaf, Teeny Weeny turns down sweets and tea and goes home to brush her teeth.
The mother questioned the author over the message she was sending to young children. “In what world is that a good book? I don’t know who… it’s Julia Donaldson. Julia Donaldson wrote this?
“In what world are we perpetuating these harmful ideas that Queen Teeny Weeny only wanted one leaf to eat?”
Image credits: shrimpyvampy
“I think it’s a really harmful idea for a five-year-old girl to read about,” the mother reiterated in her video before asking, “Am I going crazy, or is this literally insane? Maybe it’s just me.”
Many commenters agreed with the mother, saying it was harmful to teach children that eating only one green leaf was acceptable.
“Basically teaching food phobia at a young age,” one viewer fumed, while another wrote, “What is even the plot of the story?”
A third stunned viewer commented, “What in the 90s is happening?”
Another TikTok user said the book was missing a page in which Teeny Weeny became hungry and “went to Queen Anneena to ask her for a massive big bowl of pasta.”
Others, however, argued that the mother had misunderstood the story, which they said focused on fussy eaters–or was simply written to help children practice phonics.
“They are phonics books, I’ve never really truly felt there is a point other than it all rhymes in such way to make it easier for them to read,” one viewer wrote.
“It’s not that deep,” joked someone else.
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In a follow-up video, the mother stressed that she was aware her daughter would not develop an eating dis*rder simply from reading the book. Still, she argued that this issue often results from repeated exposure to different forms of media.
“Harm isn’t all perpetrated at once,” she said. “It’s a buildup of things, whether that be seeing the size of the celebrities in the movies that you’re watching or little comments in books like these.”
The mother described the character’s storyline as “entirely unnecessary” to the book’s goal of teaching children phonics.
“It’s so incredibly concerning the amount of people who saw no harm in that book whatsoever,” she added.
Image credits: Freepik/Magnific (not an actual photo)
Published in 2006, Queen Aneena’s Feast is part of Songbirds, a phonics series from Oxford Reading Tree. It has been used in schools in the UK for years to help children practice the “ee” sound.
The book has reportedly been republished in recent years without the Queen Teeny Weeny storyline.
Donaldson has published 120 books intended for school use. In January 2025, she became Britain’s best-selling author, surpassing J.K. Rowling, The Telegraph reported.
Her great-niece is the 25-year-old singer Lola Young, best known for her hit song Messy.
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