That is more the way it comes across to me. I'm wary of assuming that anything that troubles some readers (not all of them) becomes wanting Barney the Dinosaur. I don't think the books are scared of taking a Barney-like stand on right and wrong when they feel it. Many people find the story very moral (I think the author once described them that way), a straightforward triumph of good over evil with jokes that come right out of those morals.