Children often see stories differently from how adults do: sometimes they will be wondering why adults cry at stories such as The Happy Prince, the ending of Charlotte's Web, or that legendary tear-jerker for adults, the Paper Dolls.
I have a vivid memory of my own childhood, and I remember that my brother cried at sad stories far more than I did: I don't think I learned to empathise with characters in stories until I was at least a teenager, because as far as I was concerned, they were just... stories, with made-up characters. I remember our teacher reading Charlotte's Web (I was six), but nobody cried at the ending; I even remember the delicate way she said the words, as if she was anticipating tears.
However, I do remember a reading comprehension "The Red Morris" about two boys who had got into the wrong red Morris, and their mother crying when they were missing; one of the boys in the class said (with real feeling) "Poor mother". More recently, when I volunteered in a primary school, one girl was really upset to hear the story of Jesus betrayed by his friends.
It actually came as a bit of a shock to me when, at the age of nineteen, I re-read some of these stories, and "felt" the feelings a lot more than I did as a child, and I enjoyed reading in general a lot more than I had before.
What are your children like with sad stories?