Heinrich Hoffmann - The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb' -poem

The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb
by Dr.Heinrich Hoffmann
read by Murray Lachlan Young
reacorded live in New York CBGB's 1997
rnaudioproductions for http://www.ipodity.com/
http://www.allcast.co.uk/


One day, Mamma said, "Conrad dear,
I must go out and leave you here.
But mind now, Conrad, what I say,
Don't suck your thumb while I'm away.
The great tall tailor always comes
To little boys that suck their thumbs.
And ere they dream what he's about
He takes his great sharp scissors
And cuts their thumbs clean off, - and then
You know, they never grow again."


Mamma had scarcely turn'd her back,
The thumb was in, alack! alack!


The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legged scissorman.
Oh! children, see! the tailor's come
And caught our little Suck-a-Thumb.


Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out - Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast;
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands;-
"Ah!" said Mamma "I knew he'd come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb."

Audio copyright Murray Lachlan Young.com
all rights reserved

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[artgrl101]

reminds me of my childhood

[JustAudio2008]

Quite a scary one for bed time .....

[jayneykerblaney]

This story scared the living shit out of me when I was a kid. It's kinda fun to look at it now as an adult. You know, after the therapy :P

[terransage]

Struwwelpeter, Max und Moritz and the Brothers Grimm were staples of my childhood. Needless to say, I had a lot of nightmares after listening to all of these bloody, violent tales. Back in the "old days," children weren't pampered and treated like cherubs, but were taught the hard lessons of life early, to toughen them up for what was to come. A lot of them were basically used as slaves. Things have changed quite a bit since then. (Sorry, I got kind of dark there....)

[mw2glitchguy]

@GlitchDLM Jeez Lois your more of a downer than a German bedtime story.

[GlitchDLM]

Once there was a boy, who liked to suck his thumbs.

His mother asked him to stop, but he wouldnt.

So she cut of his thumbs.

Now he has no thumbs. Good night.

[gnoynix]

Well, the dad wouldn't want his son to know his penis is the size of his son's thumb.

[BabyLovePrincess2403]

My boyfriend showed me the Southpark show and I laughed so hard. He didn't believe me that in Germany, we actually are told those stories. I need to show him this!

[ThePaleBunnyPreserve]

OH YEAH I remember this from when I was a kid. XD It never scared me, i thought it was cool. I wonder if the thing was translated from German, how they got it to rhyme so well !!

[PukyBear]

Good night...

[jamielynnfox]

Thank you so much for posting this! This was one of my favorite books as a child!

[poempoorlywritten3]

Saw this parodied on Family Guy... didn't know it was a real bedtime story!! D:

[breakaway1986]

I am German and I know the originals but in English it even sounds more scary, I think. oO

Well, all of the little Struwwlpeter-stories are not reall< goodto tell children, I think but I must say when I was a kid it didn't scare me as much as it did right now xD Yeah, maybe it was because I really feel that it sounds more aggressive in English than in my mother tongue ^^

[JuliaTheFirst]

german cultural possessions :D when i was a child i used to have cassetts of the struwwelpeter-stories with different (less scary) endings. was fun. konrad sucks his thumbs but when the tailor arrives they have this deal, konrad gives his chocolate pudding to the tailor and he lets him go. :D