I think it's actually essential to children's moral development to be exposed to short stories moderately beyond their reading level where a bunch of fucked up shit happens and then instead of offering a moral lesson or any sort of emotional or narrative resolution it just ends.
#flowers for algernon :((((#a series of unfortunate events#someone mentioned paul jennings 'un-' series (i.e unreal or unbelievable) which defs fucked me up#the one i think about a lot is about a superhero who can only keep his powers so long as he keeps drinking soup#naughty stories for good boys and girls by christopher milne for sure#the thing is most of these weren't beyond my reading level (i was an advanced reader) but i just didn't realise how fucked up some were#oh and the just! series by andy griffiths
