[Lalaith]

It really annoys me when children's literature is praised for being "real life" and that this "reality" equals foster homes, ASBOs and abuse.

OK, that sort of thing is unfortunately a reality for some children but not the majority. Why is the reality of ordinary children somehow less valid than that of the deprived minority?
I would argue that for most readers, the "gritty realist" novels by the likes of Jacqueline Wilson - mothers who are profoundly mentally ill, children in foster homes, whatever - are actually fantasy. Because they have nothing to do with the reality of the children reading them.

I was there - I had the first wave of "social realist" literature for young people inflicted on me when I was little. "John sat in a ****-stained cement stairway on his grim council estate, trying to come to terms with his parents' divorce....."

Strewth.
Give me Hogwarts and Hobbiton any day.