SOURCE: "Handing out Good Advice," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4146, September 17, 1982, p. 1005.

In the following excerpt, Warnock, an English educator and author of works on philosophy, ethics, imagination, and education, faults Grown-ups and Other Problems for presenting an essentially adult perspective while ostensibly being for children.

[H]ow does one publish a book of advice? How can advice be made to do for everyone? In questions of personal relationships, unlike, say gardening or cooking, the advice may seem never to be quite or even nearly applicable to the individual. On such questions, advice must come to people one by one, after the whole complicated saga has been told. Who does not think herself unique, not a type or specimen, like everyone else? It is this conviction that explains the popularity of agony columns. We read them out of curiosity, to find out what other people are like...