A Bad Case of Stripes: Body Horror for Kids 

This was my first video essay and I'm aware of how ametuer it is. I've got a analog horror series I'm very passionate about that I'd like to get more attention: 12012003.carrd.co/ ru-vid.com/group/PLm4R5-hlN79AFfWB92zNf7HXd9m09uzHx

1:46 I'm not even joking when I say the purple minions absolutely terrified me as a child. Like these things could literally eat an entire missile with a crazed look on their face apathetic to it being made of metal and explosives, they're unable to differentiate anything other than a target and they're basically an unstoppable force that could easily kill you.

I'm weirdly surprised how many people were traumatized by this book. Personally it was one of the many books I liked reading back in kindergarten. Perhaps it was the bright colors and illustrations that kept me interested. Or maybe the meaning of the story just flew over my head as a kid ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The books we grew up with were absolutely terrifying. I remember one vividly of the old lady who swallowed a fly where she eats bigger and bigger things to take care of the creature she just ate. The modern end was rewritten to where she just became full but in the version we read she literally dies which scared the crap out of me as a kid.

This book was real??? I thought it was one of those false weird childhood memories 😭😭 Now I know where my deep rooted childhood trauma began 💀💀

This book honestly traumatized me as a kid

Between this story, the political dystopia involving baseball, and the book detailing how Christopher Columbus destroyed the lives of native people through the eyes of a child, David Shannon had some serious balls.

I always loved that art style. I like to imagine a encyclopedia of horrible monsters in the style of a kids book

Glad I wasn't the only one who felt unsettled as a kid by this book. It never caused me fear or anxiety. Instead, I was mostly just fascniated and disturbed. Great video btw! Your analysis is great.

when i read his book, i wasn't even in kindergarten. i was 4 and the worst part, was that i loved beans. ESPECIALLY LIMA BEANS. and once i read it, i started crying hard. after that i never ate beans for years. to this day every time i think about this book i get chills and the feeling to cry. now i barely eat beans.

The art for this books is insanely good, it’s all surrealism.

This book is possibly the reason why I love body horror books. "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream", "All Tomorrows", and etc.

I can’t explain how fitting the Undertale music in the background is. Even with the True Lab lore, really matches the story.

I wasn’t traumatized, but fascinated and somewhat disturbed. Definitely intrigued. Regardless, this book has been and will always be firmly ingrained into my memory.

the analyzation of the doctors looking down at her is like the perfect way to describe the feeling you get from just the imagery alone and without knowing just *why* it's unsettling. amazing video

0:02 that looks like my daycare tf- but you i was TERRIFIED of that book

I never actually scared of this book. I understood it wasn’t real but the book weirded me out and rather than scaring me, it made me feel gross and weirded out.

While this book did scare me as a kid, now as an adult with functional neurological disorder (which I have had most of my life but undiagnosed until recent years) I relate a lot to the mysterious illness that Camilla had! For example, no drs knowing what the illness is and sending Camilla to school despite her showing symptoms of an illness, because they don’t know what the illness is or what to do about it. Also, a personal experience that I relate to in this book - I relate to how Camilla’s illness changes for what those around her mention or suggest. For me, my FND symptoms can often be brought on by mention of someone else’s illness, for example I might see someone on tv that is in hospital and/or can’t walk, and my seizures and leg weakness will come on. But it’s still completely out of my control and REAL! I had completely forgotten about this book, and never suspected that I would relate to it in this way! Thank you for this video, it was truly a walk down memory lane (or should I say, memory scary dark alley, lol)

This book gave me nightmares, I couldn’t even read past the page where she turns in a pill

So I guess the whole lesson of this book was about peer pressure and embracing who you truly are. But did Camilla actually have to go through all that just to be taught that lesson? What would the universe have done to her if she stole something? Psychologically torture her until she commits suicide?

i love how everyone got traumatized but i was SO interested in horror as a kid so this didnt phase me at all ☠☠ EDIT: STOP WHY DOES THIS HAVE 1K LIKES AND 4O REPLIES IM SURPRISED AND ACTUALLY CONFUSED 😭😭

I would love to see two version of a movie made of this. A lighthearted kid version, and a body horror version for teens and adults.

It’s comforting to know I’m not the only one who was traumatized and still remembers this book. I think it was the art style that was so disturbing to me, but I was TERRIFIED of this book for years

I think another thing that's so disturbing about the visuals is the color schemes. Like the one page you mentioned, with the doctors looking down on the girl in horror. The bizzare colors of the tendrils and bits and pieces doesn't even just look alien, it looks downright _horrific_ . The girl turned into a writhing mass of... everything and more, somehow.

The book basically traumatized me as a kid. So much so that I asked my school librarian if she could put it away - to no avail. Just the illustrations and with how graphic and detailed they are just made it unsettling. Even the word “stripes” made me uneasy.While I’ve grown out of that fear, I won’t lie that the cover and some of the illustrations do give a bit of a chill.

I loved this book as a kid, I grew up autistic and my classmates were not very kind or understanding. I don’t think I got the message as a kid but looking back as an adult I really appreciate its approach on the “be yourself” mantra. I feel like in most stories that have this as their moral only touch it surface level, I really like how this book showed the consequences of not living as your true self and how the further from who we are we become the more we lose ourselves to the conformity around us

I’m so glad I’m not the only one who was afraid of this book. The picture of her with plants sticking out 2:56 scared me as a kid. I remember I had a nightmare about that one page. Where she was using the tails and tentacles to kidnap children and gram them. I was maybe 4-5 and couldn’t read. Anytime my teacher wanted to read the story I had to be taken out of the class due to pure panic attacks. I never told anyone cuz I felt stupid for fearing a children’s book, but now I’m glad to hear I’m not alone.

YES the art style had NO RIGHT BEING TO DOWNRIGHT TERRIFYING. This entire moment, 5:10 , is the EXACT REASON why this book gave me the heebie-jeebies

I used to be absolutely obsessed with this book as a child I became so enthralled with body horror and transformations after that read through in 1st grade

This book absolutely TRAUMATIZED ME. After we read it I was so scared of it and then one day some kid ran up to me, found the "scariest" page in the book, SHOVED IT IN MY FACE AND WAS LIKE "BOO!" AND I WAS LIKE "AAAAAA-"

3:36 The person next to the red microphone has a rainbow shirt that says "love"; I like that, especially since this story is about learning to be yourself :)

Okay I literally never have posted a comment before but just because of this video I have to. This book TRAUMATIZED ME to the point that I had to go to therapy for a year straight as a kid. If anyone was reading it in class, they had to stop or id sob. I had to get rid of my mirror because I was so scared of seeing myself in the mirror and having the stripes. Glad I was not the only one.

I wonder if the illustrator even knew his art was capable of inflicting such surreal terror. Like, looking back and seeing a lot of the shading elements, surrealism, terror, and body horror, it's crazy to think that was all an accident lol. It's possible though, and it seems very common for cartoonists illustrators and other designers to accidentally spook kids

The funny thing is that most of the time when kids would get exposed to this book, it was during storytime. Myself included; we had to do a whole analysis on what the moral of the story was. I think that David Shannon and teachers alike were able to brush aside the fact that the visuals can be considered disturbing, much like we can now that we're adults. This story was told to us because it has an incredible lesson (one that, to this day, I have to keep reminding myself of). So, yeah. The adults in our lives were unintentionally traumatizing us because they wanted us to learn a lesson. It sort of reminds me of old morbid nursery rhymes and fairy tales.

When I was a kid (maybe even still right now), I had body horror for unusual skin colors, and let me tell you, this book was an absolute NIGHTMARE. Every time it was read, I would go to the back of the classroom and start hyperventilating with my ears blocked and face under my desk. My fear for this book was so extreme to the point where if someone even mentioned the name “Camilla,” I’d feel like throwing up because it brought back trauma. Not my proudest memories 😂

IM SO DAMN GLAD SOMEBODY FINALLY SAID THIS. As a kid this book was absolutely terrifying to me.

this book is one of the first stories that truly makes me feel an irrational need to vomit. i never comment on videos anymore but this essay hit hard for me. i remember in kindergarten our teacher put this on the overhead projector (we still used those even then) and it was narrated to us in an audio format, with sound affects and all. it made me feel sick to my stomach and yet no one around me seemed to feel the same overwhelming disgust i still hold to this day. kids were in awe, and my teacher thought it was a "very good lesson." in my opinion, the anomaly that happened to her was more like a cruel punishment than any good intended "lesson." maybe i just didn't and still don't understand it. back then everything felt so much bigger, so much more gargantuan- in the story AND physically in front of me. from the wide-scaled screen to the alphabet carpet i was sitting on, the sickening patterns of her grotesque body, laid out in front of my eyes made me unable to forget it. and to this day it is a vivid memory, praying the story would just end and i could just go into another room. or hell, even go to nap time, i hated nap time, but i was willing to do anything else but watch her condition get worse. i would have been 5. needless to say i never liked stripes, and even right now as i write this i feel like my gut may transform into some detestable monster no one on earth could explain or save me from. the helplessness of the situation happening to an undeserving child is a distinct horror few pieces of media could so accurately depict, (maybe skinamarink), and i truly believe the only reason it has stuck with us for so long was because it felt like the crime did not fit the punishment. the story goes on and overstays its welcome. she just gets worse until all goes away in a turn of the last page. the nostalgia of the not knowing how to navigate your own body and the very relatable aspect of getting no real help as a child struck chords in me.the idea that you're changing, you're ugly, you're becoming unbearable to the eye, unrecognizable to your OWN eye- and you are a spectacle to the world. as dramatic as all that sounded, there's nothing that can make this horrible memory go away, but at the very least, i almost feel freed to hear someone else put this into words and speak it out back to me. thanks

I used to be so obsessed with this book. That explains a lot about my horror obsession

My 1st grade teacher gave me this book as gift over summer so we could read. I remember reading it by myself and thinking, "Lima beans exissst????" i never thought of it this deep.

2:54 I remember getting chills when i saw that page in the book.

1) I think I had a morbid fascination with this book, even when I was little lmao 2) I had no idea this guy wrote the David books too! That's kind of wild

I feel like as a kid I was never disturbed by what others seemed unsettling, like this book or Caroline. Yet I now see how dark it really was to other kids.

I had completely forgotten about this book until I found this video in my recommended, but when I saw the thumbnail, I was immediately hit with a strange sense of nausea and fear for some reason. I put off watching this video for a little while because tbh I was worried about what the book was and what it contained to make me so stressed just LOOKING at it. And, to be honest, after watching this video….yep I understand why. This book is lowkey TERRIFYING lol, my younger self has this one right

This book STILL scares me, even as an adult now. I like that she’s wearing a rainbow bow in her hair at the very end, though. It’s a creative touch, but it’s also pretty funny.

I was a weird child. I loved this book, I read it multiple times because I found the art appealing.

bro seeing this cover gave me ptsd

this book absolutely TRAUMATIZED me. when i was like six we had a inside sleepover camp thing at girl guides and this book was there. i read it and i had a hard time sleeping, i couldn’t stop thinking about the images, and even though i knew it wasn’t possible, i'd constantly think "what if this happened to me?" also, whenever i'd experience pareidolia of faces in walls or other things shown in this book, it would like trigger the memories of this book. it took years to get over my fear of it.

glad all of our previously traumatized inner children can come together and view this book with a new lens of appreciation

Thank god I wasn’t the only one TERRIFIED by this book. Just seeing the cover gave me panic attacks as a little kid.

ngl i remember being terrified of this book as a kid, in first grade i even wanted to skip class the day they read the book and my parents and the teacher just could not understand why. i kinda started to subconsciously develop a fear of lima beans ever since i'd read it/had it read to me for the first time, because that's the main thing i could remember about the book. even now, this book is the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions lima beans. lmao.

Finally, someone who gets it! Despite it being a decade later, I am still traumatized by the cover alone. One time, my sister bought the book home. It was in her backpack but just knowing that thing was in my home, left me shivering and terrified for half the night. I gave away a pair of socks because it essentially caused PTSD. I can never admit it to anyone because who the fk is frightened of a flippin' children book? That book will be banned from my future house

Dude, the youngest memory I have was being terrified of Lima beans because of this book, and then having recurring nightmares that she was in my hallway looking for me, and all I could do was see her through a baby monitor. This book traumatized me so hard that I remember to this day

I didn’t know this book could be so traumatizing, I always loved it as a kid lol and reread it plenty of times during school hours

The fact that most ofyall got so traumatised while that book was my literal favorite 😭

I feel weird now for not being traumatized by this book when I was younger

I am a teen and I listened to someone read the book again and I agree, this is some pretty creepy stuff if you really think about it. I know the message "don't change yourself to make other people happy" is an important 1 to learn but i feel like there were better ways to do this.

This book scared the crap out of me when she fuses with the room

7:18 that does make me wonder... why is the best horror on accident? Like think about five nights at freddies. Yes that was intentional, but it was inspired by feedback to another one of Scott's games where people said the characters looked like "creepy animatronics", instead of just taking that feedback as an insult Scott said "oh, so im good at making creepy animatronics? Ill do that."

i dont understand why everyone was scared of this book as a kid, when i first read it as a kid it became my all time favorite and it was really entertaining for me. This book is supposed to show how the lack of self esteem and self love caused this girl to change colors and sizes and once she learned to love her self and her flaws she went back to normal.

I feel like it speaks volumes about me that I loved this book as a kid- I was unexplainably fascinated with the ways her body and skin changed and gave me that weird little kid euphoria

This video just shot me back to my childhood. My lord, I used to rip the sheet out of book fair magazines that had this book in it. I used to fake being sick to not show up to school for days on end because they had it displayed on the library shelf. I got in trouble at age 6 for burying the book in the dirt during Recess. Genuinely, I had completely forgotten that all of this had happened. This horrified me when I was younger.

until about fourth grade I considered myself a very easy frightened kid. I refused to go to haunted houses, ran away from spiders, openly covered my ears when teachers read scary short stories, I never dared to read anything that even implied it was horror. But when I was introduced to this book in first grade it just fascinated me. I remember actually being disappointed at the page with the doctors because we didn't get to see how Camilla looked. I didn't think it was supposed to be scary, because there was no blood, no death and Camilla was never stated to be in any physical pain. I have this blind spot tot he uncanny valley and absurdist surreal stuff. even when I was very little thought myself such a scaredy cat I didn't register anything like this as scary, just fascinating. My brain is weird I don't know.

literally this book gave me nightmares anytime I saw it after that my heart sank and I felt sick

This was literally my intro to body horror and I was absolutely *fascinated* with the artwork. I remember laying on the floor and just staring at the pictures for HOURS

I think what scared me the most about this book was the cover art. Camilla’s face and the way David Shannon drew her gave me such an unnerving feeling. (She kinda looks like a doll, tbh) I wasn’t even able to look at the cover art after my teacher read it to us in kindergarten.

Whoever made this book, it literally says " body HORROR for KIDS!!! " I bet they did it on purpose. That's crazy. I cannot believe that this was for kids. I'd be terrified, I'd be thinking that if I get a runny nose or any kind of symptoms Id have rainbow stripes all over me.

I was never scared by this as a kid, a large factor of that probably being a complete desensitization to gore for longer than I can remember (watching taxidermy), but God was I fascinated by it. The concept alone and the fact this is a children's book and like you said a lot, the art, that beautiful nightmarish art. I was captivated. Probably like 8 years later now and hey I'm obsessed with horror and, hey, body horror; wonder where that influence came from.

I was f***ing horrified by this book when we first read it in kindergarten lmao, I hated every second of it (it's only a tiny bit unsettling now ^^ )

As an adult finding out about this book for the first time, I can say that is some wonderfully (and horrifically) disturbing artwork. If I had read this as a kid, I probably would have been scarred for life, despite the good message and my love for creepy things.

This book literally fueled paranoia and anxiety for me as a kid. I was so scared to even look in the mirror after reading this or be in a room alone.

that feeling of something that's too big, scary, and/or complicated to understand earlier. then actually exploring it when you've matured more and have more space in your mind for understanding it is a strange feeling that i like exploring.

I legitimately only remembered 3 things about the book without the help of this video: Lima beans are the solution The cover art I felt uncomfortable every time I read it I think it didn't scar me bc I had actually repressed it

Thanks for making this video, I was absolutely traumatized by this book in 1st grade. I think I may have thrown up before the book was finished, so its interesting now seeing the message of the book. Ironically, that message sums up my life, ever since I've been more accepting of myself and stopped changing myself for the world my life has been much better.

I wasn't scared of this book as a kid, but I will tell you about the only book that did: When I was like eight I read this book called The Door In The Lake (took me 20 minutes of searching to find it), it was this novel about this kid being abducted by aliens, then being returned 2 years later with no memory of what happened. What freaked me out was probably how the sci fi elements were paranormal, subtle, and a little Lovecraftian and were put in an otherwise normal setting. It was far from the sci fi stuff I was used to.

Imagine if this book got a film adaptation in the style of a horror movie. I would pay to see that.

I was just disgusted by this book. I wasn't really scared, but SO grossed out. I kind of forgot half of it, and this video made it all come rushing back-

This book always scared me this came across me four times in my life ever. Hearing this video changed my perspective and I feel overcomed im 19 now and I'm was literally shaking seing this again. I am SHOCKED to learn to hear the same MAN to make this book and No David (literally my favorite childhood book) it comes full circle.

I'm pretty sure I had a weird obsession with this book when I was younger instead of being traumatized 💀

Dude, I was so scared of this when I was younger and it took me five years to realize the meaning behind the book. I thought it was just there to be creepy and scare me when I was younger pretty crazy I wasn’t the only one I thought this was very obscure.

I feel this book is the reason why I’m so fascinated by body horror

I cannot fathom why I loved this book so much, I’d read it over and over again whenever I could get my hands on it at the school library. Which probably explains why I have such a fascination with body horror now. Huh.

This book was the reason why I couldn’t eat sweet peas for a long time. The detail in the Lima beans looked way too much like the peas my mom would buy, so because of the art and the trauma the book gave me, I couldn’t even look at them without wanting to puke. Thanks David 😃👍

Blue’s Clues was my first favorite show and I’m happy it was referenced in this video!

It caused great disturbance in me and few of my classmated in the first grade and managed to make a kid cry.

I was both scared but super intrigued by this book, definitely a gateway drug into body horror for me

I remember thinking I was insane or something by being scared by this book! This book made me realize how scared I was about people turning into monsters or something that doesn’t represent themselves.

I don’t THINK I was scared of this book, but I can definitely see why it would scare most children. Glad to see you got something out of it, though!

I’m so glad I’m not alone in how much this book scared me as a kid. It’s that visceral fear you described that I remember so vividly, especially the picture where she became her bedroom. I was a very sensitive kid, so it’s no wonder it affected me so much.

I still love this book to this day, but the first time around definitely weirded me out, especially when Camilla became the room. It has to be my favorite spin on the message of being yourself! And don’t worry about having weird fears, there’s always reason behind them! I used to be scared of Cabbage Patch Kids, they just looked too uncanny valley. Now I like their soft appearance and especially their eyes.

I’m so confuzzled, people were *SCARED* of this book? I literally loved it as a little kid… 💀

I’m not kidding, when I was little, I genuinely loved the art of this book, and I somehow was never terrified of it. I thought it was so interesting and to me it had been so fun to look at that I guess I was too distracted to realize how creepy this story actually is. Now I only have fond memories of the book lol.

6:15 - 6:28 I just got very tense when you played this clip. I remember my grandma laughing her ass off by how traumatized I was at this video so to see it again after all these years is honestly a little triggering for me. Thankfully you don’t show the full clip thus sparing me of the jump scare. Sorry for this long tangent I just saw that clip & suddenly remembered something from my childhood

another body horror thing that freaked me out as a kid was violet from charlie and the chocolate factory, the one with johnny depp. god, that terrified me.

This book scared me as a kid! Glad to see someone break it down.

I'm glad people are finally realizing how horrifying this book was. It still mortifies me.

When I was little, I found this book about a girl who played outside in the dirt. And because she played in the dirt when it rained, her feet turned into roots and she became all..plant like, the book basically saying she'd pernamently never be the same. Same effect of absolute horror lmao

Everyone was traumatized by this book, somehow, I wasn't, I liked the artstyle but mostly I was just trying to figure out what the actual moral of the story was

Just how do kids read the case of stripes it haunts me to this day

Honestly, whenever I saw this book in school I was always disturbed by it in a weird way. I knew I wasn’t crazy, I knew other people found it freaky as well!

Dude this is like lost horror media for me, it traumatized me in a sense, every time i think of distortion i think of this but i never remembered names. I used to open it and just stare at the freaky images until class was over