Innocence Lost

Talking of children’s books – I recently saw a theatrical adaptation of prize-winning children’s novel Coram Boy at the National Theatre. Teenage pregnancy, mass infanticide, child sex trafficking and a very realistic public hanging were just some of the elements that made up this pitch black 19th century “tale of two orphans.” Were kids books always this dark? Ok, we always had stories about kid wizards and old hags and dragons in the classroom and stuff- but that’s because it’s every kids’ fantasy to have some sort of magic autonomy like the control adults seemingly inexplicably have over children. Then there was the fad that was Point Horror. But since when did kids read real-life crap on the page?
p.s. I told my sister at the interval it was too bleak and I felt both removed and unmoved by the play. She was, as you can imagine, laughing like a big smug thing when a small slave child finally having a mother to look after him reduced me to a quivering sobbing wreck. “Unmoved, huh…”