i find the best young children's books maintain bits of disquieting melancholy even in their final state of narrative satiety (or rarely, in their lack thereof). abel's island, where the wild things are, harold and the purple crayon, the little prince, my father's dragon, the giving tree, the velveteen rabbit, the last unicorn, all these are my long held or since rediscovered favorites. i remember in childhood a feeling of always 'leaving something behind' was never too far away, pangs of formless regret yet unbounded by a matured structuring of direction and intention. it was very different from pointed sadness or grief so readily depicted elsewhere. the books which understood and confirmed the verity of these inexpressible feelings were magnetic, and continue to be so even as the emotion itself has been partitioned into a kind of nostalgic obscurity by time and experience.
