Last week I talked about my new picture book, Halloween Forest, and about the function that fear has in a story, even for very young children. Fear tucked inside the safety of a story can allow us an exciting chill without submitting ourselves to danger. It allows us to move through our own feelings and emerge on the other side, having grown larger.

But that leaves us with a question, an important one. When is scary entirely too delicious? The truth is—and it's an important truth for those presenting books to young people—no one can answer that question except the one facing the fear.

Most children, I think, will find Halloween Forest simply fun. Some will be frightened and love being frightened and emerge more self-assured. Others may peek at the forest of bones and turn away. If they are allowed to choose their own level, their own instincts will protect them. 

My rule of thumb when my children were growing up was always to have lots of reading material available and to have no restrictions whatsoever on what they were allowed to read. Obviously, we didn't have pornography in our home—neither sexual pornography nor the pornography of violence—but we had plenty of adult material they weren't yet ready for. Without fail my son and daughter sought out what served them at each age and stage of their growth, selecting what entertained, satisfied, and nurtured them. And they both grew into responsible adults and lifelong readers. So our free-selection policy worked.

(I must add, though, that my children grew up years before the Internet and cable television came on the scene, so the pool from which they could select had easier boundaries than today's world provides. And the access provided by those media would be the basis for a whole different discussion, one I'm not equipped to lead.) 

Books, however, still live in a pretty safe zone. A movie that is terrifying can imprint itself on a young brain before the recipient has a chance to blink. But because reading is a less passive activity—or being read to is an interactive one where the child still can exert control—we have time to put the book down, to turn away when it overwhelms. And I'm confident that those for whom the fear set up in Halloween Forest is not delicious will do precisely that.

So "Take care! Beware! Despair! You can bet you've just met your worst nightmare!"

And if my story is for you and for your child, it will give you both a satisfying shiver . . . and a deep sigh of satisfaction.