I like the repeated metaphors about the limited extent to which we can own the characters we love, and bring them into our own world. As much as we wish we could, we can't actually stop characters from exhibiting weakness, cowardice, or avarice, and we can't stop them from making bad choices, and ultimately, from death. I think books for children, much more often than movies, are the things that teach them that important lesson about the vagaries and randomness of life. When it's on screen, it's big, and loud, and bright, so it can't also be sad, or too scary, much less devastating, or so seems to be the conventional wisdom of many of the TV and movie producers who target children. Perhaps because the page is two-dimensional, and the depth with which we experience the words on it depends in large part on our imaginations, the best children's authors feel freer to impart hard truths, with the understanding that children will absorb them when they're ready.