Literary blockage

Ever since Sparky was born 16 (O.M.G.) years ago, I have had difficulty reading books about kids in trouble, or kids being hurt, or kids dying. It seems to be focused on single-digit-aged kids, though I'm not particularly excited about teenagers who are hurt either. The only reason I pushed through Columbine was because of the journalistic distance and unwillingness to dwell on the details of suffering the author employed.

So I brought home this book, which got good reviews--I probably read the one in Bookmarks Magazine--a couple of weeks ago. Two days ago I started reading it. I read the blurb on the inside cover, and made it to page 8. The foreshadowing is so great that I can't go any further. Honestly, I wanted to stop on about page 4, pushed myself another few pages, and realized that I just can't. I fear gory details, heart-stopping terror, and the all-too-real nightmares they will cause me.

I still can't read about kids being hurt. I know what's going to happen to this little boy--the first sentence reads "Jonah was dead for a brief time before the paramedics brought him back to life." I suppose I could skip over the first section, but I've never been good at doing that and feeling like I understand the rest of the book.

Hence, this book goes into the pile of Books About Sick/Dying/Injured Children along with most of Jonathan Kellerman's and all of Andrew Vachss' books. Does this make me a sap?

The very interesting things about this neurosis, if that's what it is, is that a) fiction books are worse than nonfiction; and b) TV shows involving kids mostly don't bother me...as much.