Hearn complains that American librarians have unjustly labeled Baum's Oz books as "poorly written"; the librarians, however, are right. He attributes their preference for British fantasy to "Anglocentric" "reverse snobbism," but the truth is that in Britain real writers like Lewis (and J.R.R. Tolkien, and J.K. Rowling and Phillip Pullman today) write children's fantasy, and they take their readers seriously, as people facing a difficult and often confusing world.

We'll probably never see an annotated "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" because the Christian elements in Lewis' work repel interesting critics and scholars -- some of whom are still embarrassed about how much they liked his books as kids. (Lewis scholarship exists, but it's a hagiographic wasteland roamed by worshipful, third-rate Christian academics who see his work as something close to divine revelation.) Former fans often (mistakenly) dismiss his children's books as simple religious allegories, and the well-earned reputation that Christians have for smug proselytizing has tarnished much of Lewis' writing by association.

It's a shame because "The Chronicles of Narnia" is a fascinating attempt to compress an almost druidic reverence for wild nature, Arthurian romance, Germanic folklore, the courtly poetry of Renaissance England and the fantastic beasts of Greek and Norse mythology into an entirely reimagined version of what's tritely called "the greatest story ever told." Even if you don't agree that it's the greatest story, it's still one of the great ones, and Lewis -- a leading literary scholar of his generation and a writer of uncommon eloquence -- not only set himself a mighty task but pulled it off. This is British children's fantasy -- a far cry from the modest American talent who leads with a promise to dispense with all "disagreeable incident."

Just as the British think that children are important enough to merit the work of their best writers, British children's writers think children are important enough to be treated as moral beings. That means that sometimes things get scary. The four children -- Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy -- in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" have not just their own distinct personalities but their own private tests; though they too wind up as kings and queens of a magical land after saving it from an evil witch, they have to fight, hard, for their crowns. Lewis' depiction of what it means to be tempted by evil, as Edmund is by the White Witch when she plays on his vanity, and of the behavior -- from petty cruelty to grave betrayal -- that results, made a tremendous impression on me as a child. It communicated that, faced with often deceptive and even self-destructive emotions and impulses, I had choices to make in my life, choices that mattered.

Baum, like many Americans today, saw children differently, as pure innocents who need to be shielded for as long as possible from the challenges of life. "There should never be anything except sweetness and happiness in the Oz books," he told a friend, "never a hint of tragedy or horror. They were intended to reflect the world as it appears to the eye and imagination of a child." While the sentiment is genial, that's all it is: sentiment. Even children themselves find that sort of talk annoying. That's why they greet the deliciously dour books by Lemony Snicket with such glee: The meddlesome protectiveness of adults has made reading sad stories about unfortunate events a naughty pleasure.

Beyond a bit of healthy rebellion, though, you can't blame children for resenting adults who'd like to keep them in a rosy bubble, far away from reality's shocks. A life without risks or danger is a life in which nothing important can ever happen. It's also a pipe dream. Children, like everyone else in the world, encounter situations that force them to decide between their best and worst impulses -- whether or not to side with a picked-on schoolmate, for example. The bumpy journey from the blithe egotism of infants (and Baum's Ozians) to a larger understanding starts early, and the kids who make the best adults know that growing up is their big adventure, not a fall from grace. Just because the readers are little doesn't mean the stories have to be small.

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"