NYT ONLINE | Words of Wisdom from Lemony

“The darker aspects of American culture have been getting a bad rap lately. Dark humor has been deemed unfunny. There are even a handful of towns that have canceled Halloween, because children shouldn’t explore scary things in such scary times.”

Lemony writes about awful things that happen. He writes for children, disturbing tales. His books are very popular.

Many children are ill-equipped to deal with this world, because of how often parents hide their eyes from the darker themes in movies, books, and even cartoons.

Children deserve and need tragedy in their stories as much as they need comedy. When we hide these things from them, they run the risk of being unbalanced.

And they should be taught how to be mindul of their own needs and how to regulate and evaluate what they take in.

It can be done. It worked with me (mostly). I’m trying it out on a couple of test subjects. results back in the next fifteen years.

In the meantime, go sign up for the NYT online and read Lemony’s rant. And buy one of his books for a child this holiday, if for no other reason than to be contrary.