Parents may fret over whether children will be scared by books, movies or TV shows, but Sam Leith in the Guardian staunchly defends scaring children. Scaring children is the point of children's books, he proclaims, and being scared is a natural prerogative of children. As I search my memory for scary stories I read as a child, I find it hard to think of any. It was the fairy godmothers and the princesses that pleased me, and the scenes of reconciliation when the Beast or the frog turned into a handsome prince that made me sigh with joy. I wonder if Sam Leith is talking about boys when he extols the virtues of frightening encounters with monsters and dragons. Perhaps girls develop earlier a sense that all is going to turn out right and therefore don't linger so much on the dark side. Or perhaps girls are taught that some prince will rescue them so they don't have to worry. It's when girls become mothers and are expected to get up three or four times in the night to comfort a frightened child that they develop a respect for the scariness of children's media. Someone ought to do a study...in the meantime, read the article.
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