A Newsweek article describes a new set of childrens books aimed at the 9-12 age group. Scholastic, the sort of “official†publisher to kids of school age, is publishing several series based on surviving apocalyptic events. After Harry Potter, it may have been inevitable that kids books would become less fluffy and darker. But at least Harry was about witches and magic, clearly fantasy stuff that most kids can reasonably separate from reality. I am not sure at what point we succeed in simply scaring kids who do not control their own destinies (yet) more than we give them hope that they can overcome long odds.
We have a lot or work to do to address the long term problems of global warming and energy independence. Each of these issues is already causing crises. But they are not apocalyptic in the sense that all people globally will feel catastrophic effects. They cost a lot of money and will require sacrifice to fix. In some ways this is harder because they will not be fixed by a single election or a single huge scientific breakthrough. It will take sustained focus by this and subsequent generations. So scaring kids a little with real world issues may be OK as long we communicate that they have some time and will have the skills to address them. If they think doom is imminent and these problems have to be completely solved right now, they may not realize that they have the opportunity to be part of the solution long term by studying, learning and innovating in their own right. Their parents will very likely not be their saviors.
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