An Irish author says it is better for parents to explain issues confronting children, rather than ignoring them.
It comes after British comedian and best-selling children's author David Walliams has come under fire for some of his writing.
Poverty campaigner Jack Monroe has described it as 'sneering classist fatshaming grim nonsense'.
She also used examples from the books such as 'fat' being used as a derogatory term and 'four-eyes' for children wearing glasses.
Peter Cosgrove is author of the book 'Family Fun Unplugged'.
He told Lunchtime Live: "I would say as a bigger point around all this, I do think we need kids reading and I think that's one of the biggest challenges we have.
"It's the one time a child reading gets to hear someone else's thoughts from their own point of view, which you never do with television.
"And I think it's a wonderful thing."
"I think the one thing is most of these books would end up with a good ending.
"And I think you do need to have nasty characters, and nasty characters often say nasty things.
"So I'm somewhere in the middle on this - I think there's merits on both sides".
He says other books by Walliams deal with several important issues.
"Single parenting, dementia, cross-dressing, childhood cancer - a huge amount of stories that are really of interest because they actually make kids think.
"And we sometimes underestimate how much they want to talk about these things.
"If a parent is reading this with their child, this gives an incredible opportunity - if there is any times when they're giving out to somebody cause they're fat or cause they wear glasses - these things happen in real life.
"And actually they're going to happen anyway, and the best thing a parent can do is probably talk through these things.
"Their goal in life should be not saying 'you can't read all these things and protect you from this', but actually say 'these things exist but here's what you need to do and here's how you need to think about these things'".
He also says the answer is not as simple as it may seem.
"I think the first thing to be aware of - the starting point - is not to get angry and throw our toys out of the pram and say 'this is either political correctness gone mad' or the opposite 'let's burn all David Walliams' books'.
"I think people have this thing that there's a black or white answer here, and the reality is it's probably somewhere in-between.
"I would think some of the stuff in the book is no different than a lot of stuff you'll get elsewhere.
"And you could argue that kids hear this in the schoolyard and all they're doing is reflecting what life is.
"But there's possibly some links in there that are definitely a little bit lazy, and given as there's 37 million copies sold, he should probably have been a little bit more careful - and some of those things could probably be nuanced a little bit better.
"So I think the reality is probably somewhere in between".
Listen to the full interview here
