Barbara Feinberg, writing for the NY Times, bemoans the current state of summer reading lists. She remembers, as a child, reading stories about “children making kooky inventions” and “a fat little witch afraid of Halloween.” And she compares those innocent stories from thirty years ago to the ones today’s children are required to read:

A 10-year-old attending the creative arts program I run told me, “Those books give me a headache in my stomach.”

I can see why. Here are some novels assigned this summer to American sixth-graders, all winners of the highest literary prizes: “Walk Two Moons,” by Sharon Creech, chronicles a daughter’s search for her missing mother, who fled, it turns out, because of a deep depression after a miscarriage and subsequent hysterectomy. At the end, the girl discovers that her mother was killed in a bus accident. In “Belle Prater’s Boy,” by Ruth White, a missing father is found to have died because he shot himself in the face; Belle Prater, the errant mother, is never found, although her son remembers her saying that she’s in a straitjacket: “Squeezed to death. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I have to get out of here.” A far gentler book, “Because of Winn-Dixie,” by Kate DiCamillo, is about a girl who finds a friendly dog who in turn helps her rebuild her life. But she must do that because her mother abandoned her; we are told also that the mother “loved to drink.”

…The rationale for exposing 10-year-olds to such potentially upsetting books is that children who read about situations different from their own gain a larger frame of reference for understanding human behavior and cultural diversity. Some educators believe that life is harder than it used to be; books shouldn’t shield children from this. The argument is, as the head of the English department in a school here in Westchester County told parents, that anxiety is useful to children.

(I think that’s also Disney’s mentality.)

Related: Titles and summaries of children’s books, collected three years ago when I was working on a story about a young boy with a disability:

See Ya, Simon. Hill, David. 1992.

Over the years, fourteen-year-old Nathan has learned a lot about muscular dystrophy from his best friend, but is unprepared for Simon’s rapid decline and approaching death.

Eyes of a Stranger Heisel, Sharon E. 1996.

Marissa, a shy self-conscious girl with a twisted leg, is attracted to a strikingly handsome visitor to her uncle’s carousel but begins to suspect that he is a psychotic serial killer.

Freak the Mighty. Philbrick, W. R. 1993.

At the beginning of the eighth grade, learning disabled Max and his new friend Freak, whose birth defect has affected his body but not his brilliant mind, find that when they combine forces they make a powerful team.

Hide Crawford Quick. Froelich, Margaret Walden. 1983.

The Prayther family had 4 girls and when the new baby was a boy they were overjoyed. Their joy was marred by the news that the baby only had one foot. The book tells how each family member deals with and adjusts to Crawford’s disability.

Helping Hands: How Monkeys Assist People Who Are Disabled. Haldane, Suzanne. 1991.

A photo-essay focusing on a teenager with quadriplegia and his capuchin monkey, illustrating how capuchins are trained to provide help and companionship to people who are disabled.

More titles:
The Little Lame Prince
Very Special Critter
Just a Little Different
The Bernstein Bears and the Wheelchair Commando
Head Over Wheels
Are You Alone on Purpose?