Writer's Block: Wild Rumpus
"It's a hard world for little things." The best children's literature understands this and doesn't white wash childhood as something fun and sweet and innocent. Not counting folk tales or fairy tales (which aren't really children's literature anyways), I always identified most with Edmund from the Chronicles of Narnia as a kid, how he was a brat and a bit of a bully and having to deal with sibling rivalry, but he changes his ways and sees the darkness of a beautiful world. Mary, from The Secret Garden, was the same. I also always loved Matilda from the eponimous Roald Dahl book, being a unappreciated genius, and all. :)