Most kids fiction rides on the tides of fashion and whim, and the things the kids read and watch today are very much not the same things they were into 10 years ago.
But some things last for more than a single generation, especially when parents can't help introducing their offspring to the same things they loved as a kid. And some very rare things last for many decades, even though they are full of references to things from long ago.
Among the greats of children's literature is, of course, Beatrix Potter. Her ideas and concepts are still being lucratively mined, nearly a century after she died, and audiences are still responding to her gentle adventures of Peter Rabbit and chums, and the incredible artwork that depicted them.
They also, on occasion, sound completely bloody insane when you read them out loud to children.
We've had a small collection of Potter books in our house since long before our kids came along, and now they are at an age that they are suitable for bedtime reading, but then my wife hears me reading out a line like "there was no end to the rage and disappointment of Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca" and she thinks I'm having a stroke or something.
The general moralising of these stories still stands up, relatively speaking, but some of the details sound like somebody completely off their tits. The kids don't mind, of course, they think the names are great.
Maybe this is one of the main reasons people still read Potter books. Not because they are timeless tales of gathering nuts and stealing veges, but for the weird little details, and strange names that still get a reaction from a modern reader, even if that reaction is likely to be 'wait, what?'. Stories have become immortal for less.
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