The witch, who is evil and hideous, deserves humiliation and sorrow. Everybody gets what they deserve in the end, of course. That?s the way the world works. Or not.

My daughter Adora, who is eight, would call this sort of scenario ?banal?. It?s one of her favorite words these days and she uses it all the time. Maybe she overuses it. But if you stop to think about it, a child?s world is suffused with the banal. They make construction paper turkeys to commemorate the ?friendship? between early settlers and Indian tribes, they sit through movies that feature singing tea-cups with lisps, and they watch children?s programming where morality is delivered up pre-packaged on a platter.

Adora is a writer. She?s been writing since she was four years old and published her first book at age seven. She just finished a political satire, and is now working on a short play that features a dialog between Tolstoy and Chekhov. One of the things people find most surprising about her writing is her ability to create complex characters.
maternity photographer