By Ian Shoales

i was in line at the post office the other day, waiting to mail my latest book proposal to increasingly indifferent publishers.

Above the heads of the postal employees (who seemed cheerful and helpful, not disgruntled in the least) there was one of those NEWS BRIEF machines. Red light-emitting diodes marched across a black screen, spelling out the news of the day.

The news on that occasion was that Moamar Khadafy had written a children's book. My hands were full, and I didn't have the tools with me to write down the title -- I don't bring a Powerbook when I stand in line at post offices.

When I got home, I seemed to recall the title as something like A VILLAGE IS A VILLAGE, THE LAND IS THE LAND, AND THE SUICIDE OF A SPACEMAN. What could that possibly be about?

The first two parts of the title I understood. Children's books tend to state the obvious, in the mistaken belief that children adore oxymorons. But what was this astronaut killing himself business? Somehow, I couldn't see Mom sending little ones to slumberland with a tale of self-slaughter among the stars. But Khadafy's book has sold 100,000 copies in Libya! That's what the machine said anyway.

I'm sure that previous tyrants tried to capture children's minds. Maybe Goebbels created a NUTZY THE NAZI SQUIRREL series back in the thirties. Maybe Stalin commissioned a Red Dinosaur to go from village to village and force children to sing hearty working songs. Maybe Castro had a khaki dinosaur doing the same. Mussolini could have dressed like a clown and played nonsense songs on a guitar. There are thousands of paintings of Chairman Mao surrounded by adoring pre-teen commies, as he tells them whimsical fables illustrating ways to increase tractor production. Saddam Hussein may have mime skills.

But these are all mere propaganda efforts, attempts to bring the malleable young into an ideological fold. Khadafy is on a different track here. Ownership of Khadafy's book could be compulsory in Libya, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and wonder if he's tapped into the dark side of children's psyches, creating a whole new literary genre: KID NOIR.

The times could be ripe for it.

Take that six-year-old in California who assaulted a neighboring infant, apparently because he felt that he had been disrespected by the infant's parents.

When I was a tad, we would have settled for toilet-papering their house, but those were more innocent times, weren't they? All we had to fuel our little brains were Jim Kjelgaard books about dogs, television shows about children living on ranches with uncles, airplanes, horses, and wonder dogs, and Audie Murphy westerns. Today little brains are gassed by R.L. Stine books about monsters, television shows about clean-living teenagers giving kung fu to monsters, and interactive media featuring monsters.

My childhood days may not have really been more innocent, but the monsters were certainly less convincing. We expected disrespect. We took big lies in stride. And we kept our opinions to ourselves, except on holidays at family gatherings fueled by alcohol. Nobody paid any attention to us at all, and it was good.

Today everybody and his drug-free dog has an opinion about pretty much everything, all the time. And every opinion seems to lead to a standoff in Montana, new conspiracy theories, or policemen beating up brown-skinned people after high-speed chases.

The media seem more tweaked than usual about this six-year-old, though; they seem to believe that his bizarre violent act is evidence of something larger.

Throughout the land, busybodies are taking hard looks at the six-year-old's mother's parenting skills, noting the absence of a father, revealing the fact that he has an uncle in prison, debating whether he lived in a bad neighborhood or not, and discussing the role Power Rangers may have played in the formation of his criminal toddler psyche.

But this worm too will turn. His lawyer has already called him a "munchkin" in public. I don't know how many other munchkins are facing felony charges, but I wouldn't be surprised if this one puts this business behind him, sues the family of the baby he battered for visitation rights, and grows up to be president. Then he'll know what disrespect means, by golly.

In the modern world, as we all know, predators are victims too. Republicans like to say that they are repulsed by the "culture of victims" mentality. But they're not above resorting to it: the left-leaning media doth make victims of them all.

To me, however, the predator-as-victim mode sounds suspiciously like a premise for an early Alan Ladd movie. If we look at this six-year-old as an anti-hero, we can probably get a lot more entertainment value out of him. Again: KID NOIR. The adventures of pre-adolescent loners trying to escape the mean streets. Eight-year-old Robert Mitchums planning armored car heists. Seven-year-old Veronica Lakes dropping a dime on the playmates they loved.

I think modern children may be ready for "Koko the Kooky Serial Killer," a "Seven" for seven-year-olds, a little Phil Marlowe in a snappy little fedora. With the right marketing, Jessica Dubroff could become the Amelia Earhart of the '90s.

In other words, it's not parents, culture, political system, friends, or the media....

It's Chinatown, kid. Just walk away.