"I used to have a patchwork theory about the makers of children’s literature: that they were not so much people who spent a lot of time with kids as people who were still kids themselves."

"Among the evidence was that Beatrix Potter had no children, Maurice Sendak had no children, Margaret Wise Brown had no children, Tove Jansson had no children, and Dr. Seuss had no children. Even Willems began writing for children before he had a child. But what makes these adults so in touch with the distinct color and scale of the emotions of children? I now have a new theory: Tove Jansson began her Moomin series during the Nazi occupation of Finland; Paddington Bear was modelled on the Jewish refugee children turning up alone in London train stations. Arnold Lobel, the creator of the Frog and Toad books, came out to his children as gay and died relatively young, from AIDS. I wonder if the truer unity among children’s-book authors is sublimated outrage at the adult world. If they’re going to serve someone, it’s going to be children."

From "Mo Willems's Funny Failures/How the author teaches young readers to confront problems and be resilient" by Rivka Galchen (in The New Yorker).

I haven't read children's books in a long time, so I'd never heard of Mo Willems. I greatly enjoyed reading about him, especially: "Many parents have told me that they find Pigeon too angry or too snarky or too adult. And Pigeon is angry and snarky.* Years ago, many grownups were similarly skeptical of the tantrums of Max, in Maurice Sendak’s 'Where the Wild Things Are.' The children of those grownups are now grownups who name their children Max."

And that line "If they’re going to serve someone, it’s going to be children" reminded me of 2 things: One that I blogged recently:

"The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies." — William Faulkner

And the other is something that long ago got wedged into my consciousness: David Foster Wallace (in "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart") wrote:

Obviously, a good commercial memoir's first loyalty has got to be to the reader, the person who's spending money and time to access the consciousness of someone he wishes to know and will never meet. But none of [Austin's memoir's] loyalties are to the reader. The author's primary allegiance seems to be to her family and friends....

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* Here's the book "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!"