Now here's the bad news...

Should children's books always have a happy ending? Donald MacLeod heard some authors who think not

Why do they always live happily ever after? Because in children's books we grown-ups expect them to, that's why. No matter how implausible, no matter how bleak the story - and there are some pretty bleak children's stories about - we expect a bit of hope at the end, or at least a moral to point our young ones in the right direction.

The idea of an immoral or nihilistic children's book is unthinkable, isn't it? So it came as a shock when at a seminar of English, Dutch and Belgian writers the idea of a "bad" children's book was floated.

Anne Provoost, a prize-winning Flemish author, told the gathering in Antwerp that if writers of children's books really wanted to be considered as artists rather than pedagogues, they would have to be totally honest and abandon any self-censorship. Was it not being condescending to children to shield them from negative emotions and the sense of futility? she demanded. (This was taking place in an old monastery, by the way.)

"This may well result in the politically incorrect... a children's book that reacts against monogamous love, a children's book that repudiates self-sacrifice and mocks the keeping of promises, and - probably 'worst' of all - a children's book that propagates intolerance," she said.

Could a book be written about a child who stole repeatedly and got away with it? Or even about a girl who seduced a grown man? "Don't misunderstand me, I am a supporter of the constructive and the optimistic, but does this necessarily mean that I am willing to submit to the dictate of the positive? It is not wrong to comfort and console children, but it is wrong to systematically shield them from futility and the feeling that some things are without any sense. Should some then say: we do what is good for the child, then we remain pedagogues instead of artists."

Her own book, Falling (Allen & Unwin, £6.99), deals with racist intolerance in a vivid and plausible manner - but the moral is clear. Wim Hofman, a Dutch author at the seminar, has gone a step further with his fatalistic version of the Snow White tale (Black as Ink - not translated into English) in which the heroine seems doomed to become as evil as her stepmother. On the other hand, Joke van Leeuwen's delightful Eep shows a much more hopeful delight in strange and wonderful things and carries a message about selfless love, albeit in an undidactic way. (Sadly, that is not published in English either.)

Philip Pullman, whose acclaimed Northern Lights (Scholastic, £5.99) and The Subtle Knife (Scholastic, £5.99) have (bizarrely) been accused by fundamentalist Christians of promoting satanism, commented that a nihilistic children's book might be possible as an experiment but would not work. Acts had consequences and a writer ought to show that.

Provoost's bombshell set the seminar buzzing and will doubtless provoke plenty of opposition when she comes to London for the "return match" in May, but she did expose a certain amount of doublethink at the heart of the children's book world in Britain as much as on the continent. Are these books to be judged as literature or not? And if so, shouldn't the same freedom to tackle anything apply?

The furore over Harry Potter and the Whitbread prize - should it go to the little wizard's creator, JK Rowling, or the poet Seamus Heaney for his translation of the epic Beowulf? - showed that some of the judges at least were prepared to reward a hugely popular children's book in ways that they wouldn't dream of doing for a good, racy adult read. The row left a lot of people feeling ambivalent - glad that a children's book was at last getting critical attention, but conscious that as literature, Harry Potter was open to unflattering critical comparisons.