This reminds me of the C.S. Lewis quote “ When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

This also reminds me of finding boxes full of superhero comic books from the 1950s and 1960s in my grandparent’s basement. They had belonged to my father and his siblings when they were teenagers. I loved reading those old comic books where every story had a complete story between two covers. Where it was always clear who the good guys and who the bad guys were (and if the good guy was acting bad, you knew that by the end of the story it would be revealed that they were pretending or being controlled by a bad guy). The stories were plain fun and uplifting. Such a joy to read. Decades later I tried getting into the modern comic books. I was disappointed by them. They were all serial stories that required reading multiple volumes to get the whole story. The themes were ones of depression, cynicism, bleakness, sadness, hurt, pain. I simply couldn’t relate and yearned for the comics of my youth in my grandparent’s basement. But, I still really enjoy the marvel movies ;-)