Most "teach the kids to read" ABC books feature adorable multicolored scenes of childhood innocence and cute farmyard animals.
But the editors of this 1963 Slovenian ABC Primer for 6 year olds decided what was needed was something darker..... something much *much* darker... 1/
But the editors of this 1963 Slovenian ABC Primer for 6 year olds decided what was needed was something darker..... something much *much* darker... 1/
What the little tots needed, the editors of this edition apparently felt, was a bracing dose of reality....
A fatal car accident with a dead pedestrian, a pool of his blood spreading over the road..... 2/
A fatal car accident with a dead pedestrian, a pool of his blood spreading over the road..... 2/
A visit to the cemetery.... we are told that the reason the little girl here looks especially sad, is because her mother is dead. They also make a point of visiting the special child-size grave shown at the bottom right. 3/
Arsonist boy sets the curtains alight..... 4/
.... and burns the family home down. 5/
Some of the scenes look quite innocent at first, but then you can't help noticing that there are knives...... big knives.... many, many knives. 6/
To everyone's surprise, this primer was not the runaway success with Slovenian teachers and parents that the publishers had hoped, and it was never reprinted again after 1963. 7/
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