I have been reading JK Rowling's

serialised story, "The Ickabog". I confess I glanced at the first chapter when the other issue arose. Since then I have read more of it - partly because it reminds me of something that the Senior Cat used to do.
It started the year I turned twelve and went on for the next three or so years. The Senior Cat began telling Middle Cat and the Black Cat a bedtime story. They are of course much younger than me or Brother Cat and were still at the age where the bed time story was an essential part of bed time routines.
I wish now we had recorded the story. It involved both of  them - under vaguely Russian sounding versions of their names  - and a hot air balloon. They had wild adventures. 
I know my mother sometimes worried about the content - especially when the balloon would be collapsing and were they going to make it to ground safely.  My brother and I would sit outside the bedroom door with our hands over our mouths trying not to laugh out loud at the absolutely ridiculous story lines. Even my mother would occasionally listen in. It was fun.
I reminded the Senior Cat of this recently. He remembers doing it and admitted that he had taken some of the story lines straight from the books he had read for English in his degree, the history he had studied and the Latin classics - all three of his university subjects. (Geology did not get much of a look in - if at all.) Of course he had changed the stories to fit his purposes but the general outline was there -  with hot air balloons in place of sailing ships and landings on the moon rather than earth and much more.
Now I am very aware that the vast majority of parents would never have been able to do what he did. Some even have problems with talking about the events of their own childhood. We were incredibly fortunate because we had not only the Senior Cat but  his parents. Both my paternal grandparents were able to talk about their childhoods. Add the Senior Cat's creative skills to that and we have a rich cultural heritage denied many children.
And that cultural heritage is being increasingly denied many children. Parents are "too busy" to read bed time stories - and creating one would be beyond far too many of them. Then there is also the "well if I am going to read to them it should be non-fiction so they learn something" parent. Non-fiction is fine, indeed absolutely essential but children also need to be challenged to use their imagination in other ways. Finding out how a machine works is important but finding out about what sort of person designed it is too. 
I worry too about parents who are refusing to allow their children to read Harry Potter because of "something the author said". I know one parent who refuses to allow her children to read anything unless it is "realistic" - all fantasy is banned. She told me recently that she thought her children were "not very imaginative". I wonder why?
The Ickabog might not be great literature but, for many children, it will simply be good fun  - and they can learn from the brave and resourceful Bert and Daisy.