answer:I wish I could get my wife, the youth services librarian in on this Q, but that ain’t gonna happen. In my opinion, didacticism is a major buzz-kill in kids’ lit. Kids want a book to be a refuge from the rest of their world that’s always preaching at them, not yet another delivery vehicle for “adult wisdom”. To the contrary, the books I like best were the ones that portrayed kids liberated from adult constraints. When I was very young, I had a crush on Pippi Longstocking. Later, I loved My Side of the Mountain and Wrinkle in Time. Very different books, but all about kids who were acting outside of adult constraint. And my kids loved Roald Dahl for the same reason; he didn’t hesitate to kill the parents off and then let the kids confront the terrible yet delicious freedom of taking on the world. The Lemony Snicket books had that same flavor, and they loved them, too.