Virtually anything with a Newberry Medal is highly likely to have a traumatizing beloved character death somewhere in it. Maniac Magee and Bridge to Terabithia were good examples from my childhood.
I guess bridge to terebinthia I read late enough that it wasn't traumatizing, and the beautiful image of a room that lights up gold in the sunset stuck with me until today.
Otoh we got an audiobook with a picture of two kids smiling riding bicycles for the car ride on a trip to the beach one year, and like 30 minutes in, one of the kids died and that was awful.
The book in the "Little House on the Prairie" series- (the one where Laura gets married and has a baby) and their childless neighbors ask to buy their baby. Is that enough trauma by itself? No. Not quite. It's the lack of empathy from Laura or her husband, they treat them so badly, like they're dangerous.
The other night I read my son an old children's book named "Prickly Pie". He wasn't traumatized by it but I could easily see a kid getting traumatized by in. In the story a young hedgehog decides to skip school and ends up being hog tied by a sly fox and almost cooked over a fire.
Not a book, but the May 2022 edition of Majid magazine. Why? In one of the comics, Amoona looks straight up horrifying. I didn't even mention the real controversy here (and honestly it's undeserved).
A lot of the original versions of the brothers Grimm stories. For example Cinderella, one of the sisters chops off bits of her feet so that she can try and get into the shoe Cinderella dropped. I think the Prince only figured it out because she's dripping in blood.
But it doesn't pay off for the stepsister at all. She's just bleeding, the story is about the triumph of The Grind- Cinderella stuck to virtue, hard work, etc.
the Brothers Grimm versions were not the original versions of any of those fairytales! they were edgy remakes! idk why or how that thinking became so common or why I care so much!
A quote from Neil Gaiman about his editor's daughter, who served as the book's first audience
I told her, "You know, we kind of have you to thank for all this, because you weren’t scared by it." And she said, "Actually, I was terrified. But I wanted to know what happened next. I knew if I let anybody know I was scared, I wouldn’t find out."