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For more than 30 years, Robert Munsch has fascinated young readers with his unique stories that have made his books staples of any child’s library. But it is his latest story, one of admission to cocaine and alcohol addictions, that has become the most shocking and captivating one, a story not intended for his young “Munschkin” fans. In a message titled “Note to Parents” posted on his website, the bestselling author admits he's been diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive and manic-depressive. “Those challenges have led me to make some big mistakes,” Mr. Munsch says, without providing further details. But in an interview with Global Television aired Saturday, Mr. Munsch admitted he is a recovering cocaine addict and alcoholic, adding he has been clean for about four months. In his note to parents, Mr. Munsch, 64, wrote that his mental health and addiction problems are not a secret to his friends and family.

There’s an ugly secret of global poverty, one rarely acknowledged by aid groups or U.N. reports. It’s a blunt truth that is politically incorrect, heartbreaking, frustrating and ubiquitous: It’s that if the poorest families spent as much money educating their children as they do on wine, cigarettes and prostitutes, their children’s prospects would be transformed. Much suffering is caused not only by low incomes, but also by shortsighted private spending decisions by heads of households.

Two M.I.T. economists, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, found that the world’s poor typically spend about 2 percent of their income educating their children, and often larger percentages on alcohol and tobacco: 4 percent in rural Papua New Guinea, 6 percent in Indonesia, 8 percent in Mexico. The indigent also spend significant sums on soft drinks, prostitution and extravagant festivals.