childhood is the last chance gulch for happiness after that you know too much was wisdom from the pen of the british playwright tom stoppard but in googleyug children know it all and know it all too fast time was when childhood was incubated in the warm playpen of nursery rhymes leadfree colours and happy endings but that page has turned the adult world that parents strove so conscientiously to distance their children from now surrounds the crib brought home by none other than mama and papa themselves with a little help from the book that they dandle on their knee to answer many of the sticky questions children ask today parents have begun to pull out a book there are books that explain where the sun and stars come from whats buried under the earth and where food goes once past the mouth there are books that tell them how babies are born not that stork story but in these fractious times inquiries about babies and broccoli are the least threatening children now want to know why their daddy doesnt live with them anymore why mommy visits the doctor so often why the boy in their class walks funny why dumbledore is gay and what toonami means thankfully for redfaced tonguetied parents shelfhelp is at hand in this instructive subset of childrens literature familiar characters from fairytales are plucked from their cosy settings of big bad wolves and magic carpets and transplanted into more anxious modern ones so goldilocks three bears are deftly employed to defang divorce in a book by cornelia spelman and kathy parkinson a bear cub is grappling with her parents divorce mama and papa bears divorce a readaloud for children aged between two and six demystifies the domestic crisis and its aftermath through the bears own trajectory in the story baby bear dinah is reassured that even though her parents will now live in separate houses she will live with one of them visit the other on weekends and be loved by both in another title old pig by margaret wild and ron brooks the disconcerting subject of death is conveyed to a child through the peaceful passing of a pig audrey penns chester raccoon and the acorn full of memories suggest ways of remembering a loved one lost elisa snader and kimberly robbs the wheelchair sensitizes children to the difficulties of the differently abled death divorce disability natural disasters gay marriage stranger caution a parent with cancer these are the markers of our world and consequently the themes of a broad suite of childrens books that dont just dissect troubling truths for a child but also offer coping advice although such literature sells well in the west it has yet to mark its territory in bookstores in this country but needy parents have found ways reality reading jasmine kataria name changed was in london five years ago when she spotted my two daddies a