Diatomaceous earth is little sharp granules over which the snails do
not like to crawl.

For the very same reason (little sharp granules) your lungs don't like
it either. I wouldn't advise using this anywhere near where kids might
get into it.

I have a large Hosta bed along the north side of our house (Hostas love
shade) that would explode with lush foilage every spring, only to get
decimated in summer by the slugs.

I finally got rid of them, quite by accident. Two years ago, in the
fall, after everything had died back, I throughly chopped down and
raked out and burned up all the debris and red "mulch" (that the
previous owner had put down to control weeds), all the way down to bare
soil. The following spring the slug damage was greatly reduced. I did
the same thing the following fall, and the spring after that there was
virtually no slug damage. I assume there's a cause and effect going
on here, although it's too small of a sample to say for sure.