I usually avoid articles called “What [X] can teach us about [Y]”, but despite myself I really enjoyed Maria Konnikova’s What Grown-Ups Can Learn From Kids’ Books. It’s a thoughtful essay that gets to the core of The Little Prince, Alice in Wonderland, and Winnie-the-Pooh:

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” Piglet asks him as their adventures near an end, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”

“What’s for breakfast?” Pooh answers. “What do you say, Piglet?”

“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” responds Piglet.

Pooh thinks it over. “It’s the same thing,” he says. And as adults, we can at last appreciate just how right he is.

If I were to write an article like this, I would add two books to the list. First, I would mention how Where The Wild Things Are taught me that being king of whatever you’re doing isn’t what life is about:

And Max the king of all the wild things was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all. Then all around from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat so he gave up being king of where the wild things are.

And then I’d talk about Oh, The Places You’ll Go!, and how it probably contains some of the best advice on life and business that you’ll ever read:

And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.

Except when they don’t. Because, sometimes they won’t.

I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ‘cause you’ll play against you.

But since I didn’t write such an article, you should definitely read Maria’s. It’s really great.