Chapter Summaries 5 (pp. 173-194)
Raychel Treviño ~ LSSL 5393 ~ Dr. Lesesne
The Celebrity Children's Book Craze
The 21st century has given has spat out large number of children's books. Many of which have been published not so much because of the content, but because of the author. It's sad to have the shelves cleared for flaky books often written by even flakier authors, when there are so many books out there that have so much more to offer than a reproduced autograph on the title page.
They Just Make It Look Easy...
And by "they" I mean the truly distinguished and studied authors of our time. Sometimes it's the fantastical story, other times it's the theme, and sometimes it's the artwork that grabs at you and pulls you into a 32-page wonderland. Why then would so many celebrities claim that they are writing children's book because they aren't any good ones out there, or they claim they are qualified because it's easy to do? Celebrities aren't giving authors' credit, and apparently they aren't giving their illustrators' credit either. That's probably the worst of it, because what's a picture book without the pictures?
Writing for the Stars 101
The celebrities-writing-books has become an obvious trend, even to those who don't follow the children's book market. However, within that trend we find another trend in the style these celebrity writers have. The first one is that they like to come up with the funkiest names around. Perhaps having the kids so busy giggling at the funny names will take the edge off the moral the story is trying to drive home. Which brings us to the second thing that these celebrity authors like to do: smother it in blatant character education. This goes out to the celebrity authors who claim to be qualified writers simply because they are mothers: any mother knows that nothing makes a kid tune you out more that telling her/him how a perfect kid should behave, especially if that kid is dripping with sugary sweetness. Real moms know that you have to be sneaky, hide the lesson in a cool story - one that might even be a little gross. Kids love it, and it works every time!
Gifted
Not all celebrities are horrible writers, however. Some are actually quite good. We can't just overgeneralize and say that people are limited to only one talent. Where would that have left De Vinci? So, critics have to swallow their pride sometimes, and admit that some people just have the ability to win an Oscar or Grammy, and maybe a Caldecott, too.
Kay, Who?
Sometimes an author gets typecast because of a character he/she has played. But it's rare when the fame of a book character overshadows the author themselves. That's exactly what happened to Kay Thompson. A multi-talented stage actress, dancer and choreographer (to name just a few things she was known for pre-Eloise) she came up with the character of Eloise for her live comedy show performances. She later turned that character into a book, and strangely the world continues to know Eloise, but somehow forgot about Kay Thompson.
Show Me the Money
Sometimes what the celebrity versus author controversy is based on is what sells. Some publishers may argue against celebrity books and having to deal with the celebrity themselves, but others state that any author has the capacity of being overbearing and basically a pain. What publishers want is for books to move. Once they saw that celebrity books did just that they were all on board. However, the drawback is that the cost up front is way higher, too. Is it worth spending all the time and effort and MONEY to put out a celebrity book, when right after the pressure is going to be just to get back the initial investment? Is it worth putting so many man hours on one book, and placing what may be a true literary award winner on the back burner? After seeing the high numbers of celebrity book sold, publishers are all probably nodding their heads, "yes."
Truth Be Told...
The bottom line is that kids can smell a phony, and it doesn't matter if you are famous or not. They don't care. They don't discriminate...anyone's book could stink, and anyone's book could be the best book ever. So adults can try to predetermine how good a book is by promoting it to high heaven, but if it lacks substance kids will bring it crashing back down to Earth. The important thing is make sure children have all the choices available in front of them, then just stand back and wait for the truth to come tumbling from their lips.
Bibliography
Bird, B., Danielson, J., & Sieruta, P. D. (n.d.). Wild things!: Acts of mischief in children's literature.