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Perhaps the better question is: Should children's books provide them with advice at all?

Children have their parents, guardians, extended family, teachers, and other significant figures in thier lifes for advice. Literature is supposed to be an escape into a world of delight and learning.

Take J.K. Rowling for instance. It can hardly be argued that she is one of the most significant children's authors today. She says that while her books do contain moral themes, she does not design them to didactically teach morals, rather that those morals should arise organically out of the material. Indeed, we learn about loyalty, courage, and perserverance without made to feel as though we are being made to eat our vegetables.

Ms. Rowling is not the only author to employ natural morality. One of my favorite children's authors, Barbara Cooney, uses fantastic stories that contain a deeper, abstract idea. Hattie and the Wild Waves, for example is the story of a girl named Hattie who pursues a career as a painter. We are never told anything directly by Ms. Coony, yet we come away from the book inspired to pursue our dreams.

So if we really must learn morals or advice from books, I suppose we are supplied with enough such material. But let's face it. Which will instill greater love for reading in our children: a book entitled "Bessie the Cow Learns to Share" or an enthralling tale of magic carpets, faraway lands, heinous villains we love to hate, and good guys that still might teach us a thing or two?

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