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Published 10:25 08 Jul 2026 GMT
A mother has shared her shock at reading a book her five-year-old child had brought home from school after discovering its disturbing message.
Most parents would assume that any book provided for children within a school has been thoroughly checked to make sure it is indeed appropriate for the age group that will be reading it.
However, sometimes things fall through the net - as one mom discovered when she noticed something within one of her daughter's books that could be pretty harmful.
TikTok user @shrimpyvampy revealed in a video, which has racked up almost 800,000 views: "So my five-year-old daughter came home from school with this book to read,” showing viewers the front cover of Queen Aneena's Feast by Julia Donaldson.
Donaldson is a beloved children's author who also wrote other classics such as The Gruffalo, Stick Man, and Room on the Broom.
While the mom thought it was going to be a simple phonics exercise, when reading through the book, she noticed a worrying theme by the fifth page.
The story follows 15 queens who attend a feast, with each choosing different foods to eat, with one line reading: "Queen Jean had heaps of meat, Queen Nelly had heaps of jelly, but Queen Teeny Weeny did not eat.”
The mom added: "So she reads that page and I’m like… sorry, what now?"
Rather than letting her daughter continue reading, the mom decided to read ahead herself, and found it continued to be concerning.
In the following pages, Queen Teeny Weeny is offered and refuses both vegetables and jelly. When the other queens asked what Queen Teeny Weeny would like to eat, she responded: "One leaf. One green leaf."
Another queen heads off to get her a leaf, which Queen Teeny Weeny eagerly waits for before turning down tea and sweets, brushing her teeth, and heading home.
The mom raised concerns about the message this was sending to young readers, adding: "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?"
She revealed that she sent a note back to the school with the book, telling them why she did not let her daughter finish it, and revealed that they'd taken it out of circulation in their classrooms.
She added: "I’ve written in her book about it and I said she will not be finishing this book. I think it’s a really harmful idea for a five-year-old girl to read about.
"Am I going crazy or is this literally insane? I hope it’s not."
She revealed that the school later confirmed that it had removed the book from its classrooms, and thanked her for raising the issue.
The mom also discovered from other commenters that the book had reportedly been republished in recent years without the Queen Teeny Weeny character.
Queen Aneena's Feast has been used in schools in the UK for over two decades as part of a phonics series written by Donaldson to help young children practise certain sounds.
Many believed that the Queen Teeny Weeny character was meant to represent a comically fussy eater rather than being a comment on weight or nutrition.
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