Anyone noticed how many of the David Walliams stories involve death of a parent ?

[pumpkinpie01]

My ds7 got quite a few David Walliams books given to him and we were working our way through them. Every story seems to involve an absent mother normally through death , Ratburger , Demon Dentist, Billionaire Boy all the main characters mums have died. Bad Dad and Boy In the Dress both mums just left their sons. Awful Auntie the parents were murdered. Yes they are well written I don't dispute that and death is a sad fact of life but does he really need to have death in every story ? anyone else noticed this ?

@Saucery and @BluebirdHill thank you I will look for those authors. My ad-libbing will be fun tonight as he is looking at the pages whilst I'm reading and is a good reader.

For children to be the front of the story often parents need to be absent. Otherwise the parent(s) would interfere or prevent the children from making their own decision, going in wild or dangerous adventures, etc.

Yes true to some extent but it's a theme through virtually every story I'm sure he could have been more inventive without the sadness.

Ha! He hit a good formula and stuck to it!

It's just a classic archetypal story

Rags to riches
Heroes journey
Tragedy

Most humans like these stories, and good books usually have one of the classic archetypical stories within them. I don't think he has any particular type of complex we need to be worried about!

My son likes his books so I have read many of them over the last year or so. They are massive formulaic and pretty much all seem to follow the same broad storyline.