If the world were a children’s novel …

If the World Were a Village (Kids Can Press 2011) is a favorite book of mine.  It offers Western children an opportunity to view the world from a much larger vantage point than their own backyards.

But what if the world were not a village, but a middle-grade novel?

Here is my tongue-in-cheek statistical analysis of children’s literature.  Feel free to add your own statistical anomalies (both real and perceived)!

In Juvenile Fictionland…

• 30% of all children are twins
• 25% of all children are orphans (with a small percentage identifying as both twin and orphan)
• A whopping 80% of all children report enjoying the company of their siblings, particularly when going on “adventures”

• In a startling finding, only 2 out of 10 people are currently alive
• 1 of every 10 people lives in the future, with reported conditions being decidedly dystopian
• 70% live in the past (surprisingly, most past-dwellers choose to live in eras of great turmoil)

• Nearly 100% of all J Fiction families report having children

Children report the following statistics on school and parents:

• 10% of parental figures are downright mean
• The rest are clueless, lost, or generally disagreeable with the exception of .5% that are eccentric inventors or scientists (sadly, many of these also fall into the “lost” category as well)

• 1/2 of all teachers are inspiring
• 1/2 of all teachers are mean
• (There appears to be no other category of teacher in J Fictionland)
• Not surprisingly, fully 10% of fictional children are home-schooled

• 30% of all inhabitants report knowing (or being) a ghost, zombie, vampire or other member of the undead
• In a relatively new finding, .2% of all bicycles are alive
• 1 in 5 families owns a talking or eerily prescient pet
•  80% of all children have a helpful, kind, elderly neighbor who lives alone
• In another cheering statistic, 100% of all stray pets are successfully adopted

Note: This is an ongoing analysis.  All observations were made with tongue firmly planted in cheek.  No authors were intentionally harmed or insulted in the gathering of these “statistics.” Contributions to this body of work are welcomed and encouraged.

(Images free of copyright and obtained from morgueFile )