Children's writings seem to elicit a somewhat narrow range of adult responses. More often than not, the adult tendency is to read children's fictional writings as autobiographical. The adult critic can, that is, think of the child author as a collection of biographical facts, a series of life experiences with an end point marked by the production of a particular text. The adult critic, however, can also think of the child author as a maker--that is, a person who thinks and has ideas, a person who shapes ideas and events in linguistic, narrative form with some consciousness of a hearer or a reader whose response is of some interest. A particular fourth-grade child's story offers a case in point. His tale of intrigue, murder, gore, cannibalism, and conspiracy and betrayal among numerous relatives elicited concern from his teacher. An experienced, generous and accomplished teacher, she found herself worrying that the child author was "disturbed," preoccupied as he apparently was with killing. The leap from distressing content in the child's writing to an assumption of distressing elements in the life of the child author is an easy one--and at times an appropriate one. However, if it is the only one or even the primary one, the teacher-critic does the child-author a disservice and he or she stands to lose a great deal as a critic and teacher. (Contains 16 notes, 23 references, and a version of the fourth-grader's story.) (TB)