BREAKING NEWS! Literary Parents REVOLT

Reporter E. G. Runyan

“As of Tuesday, June 6th, 2023, a mass revolt of literary parents has broken out across the globe,” writes literary nerd E. G. Runyan from her dining room table. “Insider librarian Sarah Johnson reports from her desk in the Library of Congress:

“Yes, we are now facing a mass and admittedly large revolt of literary parents across the nation and beyond. The parents from many of our beloved stories are, as of now, protesting against how they are portrayed in historical and modern literature.”

When questioned further on this information, Sarah Johnson confessed that she had been at first alerted of this disruption by a friend of hers in Scotland who works at a local library in Inverness.

“She told me that parents in stories were angry about always being shown as ‘stupid,’ ” Sarah says, glancing nervously around the room as she speaks. “I didn’t believe my friend at first. But then strange things started happening here as well. Books have been tearing themselves to pieces, words being taken from their contents and rearranged into complaints. My colleagues and I are at a loss on how to handle this.”

After your reporter investigated the Library of Congress and local libraries across the U.S, it was found that indeed, the parents from our beloved tales have been revolting against their stories.

“I can’t say I’m pleased with how I was portrayed in my story,” states Artemis Fowl Senior as he sits in his office in Dublin, Ireland, Father of teenage criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl and twin siblings Miles and Beckett Fowl. “I’d been in the crime business for 20+ years, but somehow in the Artemis Fowl books I never had an inkling of what [Artemis] was doing. I can’t say I think it’s accurate.”

Another correspondent of this reporter, Vernon Dursley, uncle of Harry Potter, echoed Fowl’s words, his moustache bristling as he spoke in his living room of Number 4, Privet Drive:

“The way Rowling painted me and dear Petunia was horrendous. We know Dudders like the back of our hand; we know he would never tell lies or beat up 12 year-olds with his gang.”

“He’s so special, our Duddy-kins!” His horsy-faced wife adds as she fondly rumples the hair of her substantial son sitting beside her devouring a large pizza. Although this reporter believes that the Dursleys are admittedly not the most reliable of sources, their thoughts are one of the main complaints from the literary parents across the globe and one of the biggest reasons for the revolt; that their fictional children are able to go on life-threatening adventures and keep deadly secrets right out from under their noses. Loving literary parents argue that they know their children better than anyone, and that it’s unrealistic that their middle-schoolers and teenagers could keep such things from them.

“We aren’t stupid, you know,” Marilla Cuthbert says briskly from her kitchen in Green Gables, P.E. Island. “Although L. M. Montgomery may keep me in the loop most of the time, she still keeps things from me. If Anne wasn’t an honest and confiding character—Anne, shut up while I try to finish this interview…and NO, that isn’t sugar, that’s salt—I don’t think I’d know half of what was going on.”

“I’ve been made a horrible mother all because of my son’s auto-biography!” Roars Shasta Smedry, wife of Attica Smedry and mother of Alcatraz Smedry. “Years of time with him have been taken away…and all readers hate me. I’ve been receiving hate mail for months.”

The second main reason for this global revolt is from literary parents that don’t exist.

“They kept me out of the story so my son could have a blasted adventure!” Bellows Nonexistent Parent Number 3. “Because in their minds an exciting story would have to be free from the rules and love of parents, I don’t even exist.”

Nonexistent Parent Number Five-Trillion-4-Billion-7-Million-20-Thousand-7-Hundred and 11 writes to your reporter, “I love my daughter dearly but was killed off in a gruesome and horrible way so that she would live in an orphanage for 16 years. I still haven’t recovered from the shock.”

As this literary revolt becomes more and more dangerous, desperate, disturbing, and pronounced, the public is watching with interest to see what measures shall be taken. The Grammar Police (these people are recognizable by their constant grammar corrections in every-day speech and editing processes) are taking bold moves to get this under control, but so far no apparent progress has been made. We must all hope and pray that this period will quickly pass. For the everyday reader, please note that the ripped page from your book or your torn novel cover was indeed not your little brother nor your last friend who borrowed the book—it is an ill-tiding that the revolt has now finally spread to your town.”