Her Dory Fantasmagory books - the best, and funniest, contemporary chapter book series I know - brim with authentic childhood turmoil. No writer steers between these twin perils more expertly than Abby Hanlon. Err on the side of primness, however - outfit her with sins on the order of classmate envy and lollipop theft - and you leave the reader feeling bored and unseen. Overdo the brattiness - put a few too many Shut up! ’s in her mouth, have her engage in some too-easily-emulated act of mischief - and you end up inspiring misbehavior rather than validating the stew of feelings behind it (these are the books that get barrages of one-star reviews from sorely disappointed religious-sounding readers). You know those shameful thoughts? Those troubling body parts? We’ve all got ’em! Check out this spunky protagonist going through precisely what you’re going through!Ĭrafting an appropriately spunky protagonist, though, is trickier than it sounds. So: one job of the children’s book writer is to penetrate this dark and secretive kingdom and let some light in.

Every child is the despotic ruler of a nation in crisis - the child’s face printed on the currency that’s being burned in the streets. My parents have gone out to dinner? They must be plotting to abandon me. My shirt is stained? I must be a fundamentally rumpled creature. The megalomaniac’s cackling Mine, all mine! becomes the child’s wretched lament: Mine (oh God)…. Squabbling parents dying relatives the defeats of far-off sports teams - these are all, when you’re a child, personal judgments rendered by a cosmos that happens to be headquartered in your bedroom. Because to be self-centered in the way of a child is to suffer exquisitely.

This sounds like an indictment ( Does anyone want to know whether I feel like hearing Moana again? ), but I mean it as a call for compassion. As anyone who’s ever been, or been near, a child can tell you: children are self-centered.

Books by abby hanlon