Sleeping Beauty
Children’s books act in much the same way as dreams and nightmares, in that sense - you are given special powers, or made into a giant - but at the end you wake up, and you will be in your bed. In this way they are a preparation for the adult world, since they allow children to become accustomed to troubling thoughts and emotions. Children hunger for the safe world that they know, made strange - as long as it flips back to safety at the end. You can leave the carnival. It is only in grown-up novels that you gain the knowledge that, perhaps, you’re stuck in it for ever.
