Don’t touch that hot stove! Don’t pull the dog’s tail! Don’t say bad words! Tell a kid that they can’t do something and what’s the normal response?
Do it. Why? Because your parents, the commanders of your universe, told you not to not to do it (which is the simultaneous birthplace of both your curiosity and independence).
Don’t they remember being a kid — and that delicious wanting to know what’s on the other side of “Don’t?” One of my greatest joys as an author is to inspire kids to read.
Books were my curiosity creators and my independence days, dreaming up entire universes of imagination and possibility, all within this hand-held, human-made wonder.