Wild Things!

by Betsy Bird

  Reading through the myriad of children’s own book reviews on Amazon — some thoughtful, some glib, some written in an academic tone and some nearly illiterate — one is struck by the fact that these young people took the time to express their thoughts, to make themselves heard. They finally have a voice in what they’re reading.

  It’s taken many decades, but in this era of blogging, tweeting, podcasting, and write-your-own Amazon reviews, we’ve finally reached the point where everyone really is a critic.

  I’m getting out my pointy bra and brushing up on my singing and dancing, because there’s no good pop music out there.

  — author Jane Yolen

  ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED FROM RACKETEERING

  Our culture’s ever-present cult of celebrity has made way for an odd phenomenon in the realm of children’s literature, one whose star (lousy pun intended) has risen dramatically in recent decades — celebrity children’s books, or what children’s book expert Anita Silvey has described as one of today’s most unfavorable children’s book trends. It is too difficult to keep count anymore; repeatedly in the news, we hear of celebrities from one field or another, otherwise unschooled in the ways of children’s literature, raising their pens to write what typically turns out to be a picture book, either an overly earnest or inspiring book (wide receiver Terrell Owens’s Little T Learns to Share) or one high on goofiness but low on substance (comedian Jay Leno’s If Roast Beef Could Fly). This is assuming the book isn’t ghostwritten, which undoubtedly happens quite often with celebrity books.

  It doesn’t matter if they’re famous for acting, politics, royalty, sports, or even high crimes and misdemeanors. John A. Gotti wrote what was described by his lawyer as an inspirational children’s book, The Children of Shaolin Forest, while in prison. His attorneys went so far as to say, while trying to get him out on bail, that the New York City mobster “now prefers writing children’s books to extortion and racketeering.” Billy Crystal has written about the relationship between grandfather and grandchild; LeAnn Rimes penned a moralistic tale about the friendship between two wild cubs; Madonna released a series of picture books, beginning in 2003, including one written without a shred of irony wherein the main character determines that the road to great bliss lies in giving away all your money; and the list goes on. Brooke Shields, Gloria Estefan, Peyton Manning, Sting, Whoopi Goldberg, Kathie Lee Gifford, and even the first female member of the U.S. Supreme Court: they have all appeared on the children’s shelves of your local bookstore.

  Some celebrities take the path of least resistance: Jerry Seinfeld turned one of his stand-up routines into a picture book (2003’s Halloween), and Will Smith adapted to a picture book the lyrics to his cover of Bill Withers’s classic, “Just the Two of Us.” At least Bob Dylan (Forever Young, 2008, illustrated by Paul Rogers) and Peter Yarrow (Day Is Done, 2009, illustrated by Melissa Sweet) based their picture books on songs they’d composed themselves. And while we cheer the superb illustrations, in these two instances, they beg the question of audience, as in: Does anyone really doubt that the publishers are actually hoping to target adult readers, nostalgic for the groovy folk tunes of years past? Is this really children’s literature per se?

  Not surprisingly to its fans, The Onion drew a bead on celebrity picture books back in 2000, pondering when exactly the impressionable children of the world would see The Boy Who Was Out of His Freakin’ Mind, Man by Dennis Hopper, Mr. Crazy Shoe-Face Guy Buys a Pie by Adam Sandler, and The Boy Who Never Got Picked on, Ever by Charlton Heston, to name just a few from their very funny (faux) list.

  Speaking of Celebrities, Part 1

  A Hole Lotta Catching Up to Do

  What does a highly esteemed Newbery-winning writer have in common with a rocker who helped popularize the style commonly referred to as “kinderwhore”? Answer: blood.

  A writer of fiction for both adults and young people, Paula Fox is probably best known in the children’s book world for her Newbery-winning novel The Slave Dancer (1973) and the Newbery Honor book One-Eyed Cat (1984). She received the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1978. Fox is, in many ways, a textbook example of a children’s literary great.

  At the age of twenty-one, Fox was suffering in a lousy marriage and pregnant. Feeling she couldn’t do the child any justice as a parent, she gave the girl up for adoption. After ten days, she tried to get the little girl back, only to be erroneously informed that it was too late. The child was gone. Nearly fifty years later, this daughter — Linda Carroll, now an Oregon-based therapist — tracked down Fox, and the two arranged to meet. During their meeting, Fox learned she had five additional grandchildren courtesy of Linda Carroll. And one of them was rock star Courtney Love.

  As for her daughter, Fox said she could not have been more pleased to meet her at long last. In Borrowed Finery, Fox says of seeing her for the first time, “I found her beautiful. She was the first woman related to me I could speak to freely.” According to Carroll, Paula and Courtney did meet for an hour in Manhattan, though no relationship was forged. Years later, when School Library Journal asked Fox about her famous granddaughter, she provided a stark response: “She is crazy and, to use a modern term, a psychopath.”

  WHAT ABOUT THOSE MFA PROGRAMS IN WRITING FOR CHILDREN?

  Not everyone is starstruck over such celebrities hawking their new literary wares. Author-illustrator Elisha Cooper, for one, doesn’t mince words: “[I]f you’re an actor or a celebrity, stay the hell out of our business. It’s a free country, fine. But here’s the deal: You can write children’s books as long as we can star in movies.” At a 2010 meeting of the New England Children’s Booksellers Advisory Council, which focused upon the troubled state of picture books in an effort to get independent booksellers to provide more support to them, Cooper spoke of the need to elevate quality picture books, adding that poorly written celebrity picture books aren’t exactly going to create lifelong readers.

  If we sound cranky, it’s because it often seems that what lies behind your typical celebrity book is an inherent level of disrespect for the craft of children’s literature. It appears to play out like this: “Children’s books are cute: bunnies, gumdrops, rainbows. They look easy to write. And a picture book is typically no longer than thirty-two pages. I think I’ll write one!” This from the celebrity “It” girl — or, more likely, the aging actor, desperate to give a boost to his or her career. Madonna single-handedly cheesed off a massive swath of librarians, educators, and people who have made children’s literature their career with an inane statement in a 2003 VH1 interview on why she decided to write picture books. She noted that she had just started reading books aloud with her son and was struck by how meaningless the stories all were. Author Jane Yolen’s response to Madonna’s display of ignorance is particularly satisfying: “When Madonna told the world that she decided to write her children’s picture books, she deliberately left the illustrator’s name off the book jacket as if he was a member of her back-up band. She said in interview after interview that she thought all storybooks were vapid and empty and she intended to change all that. I wrote an answer in my online journal: I’m getting out my pointy bra and brushing up on my singing and dancing, because there’s no good pop music out there.”

  As Yolen notes, Madonna’s six picture books list only her name on the cover, a far cry from those that credit both author and illustrator right on the front. “It is plain as day when the celebrity has not illustrated his or her own book; therefore, it’s offensive and just plain silly not to credit the co-creator,” said artist Julia Denos, whose debut illustrated book, My Little Girl, was penned by a celebrity. “In an already touchy anti-celebrity-picture-book atmosphere, the celebrity should be honored to share the creator title with an illustrator who is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.”

  Why else do celebrities write children’s books? For Tori Spelling, it’s the simple fact that she loves reading to her kids. Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell wanted to “find an
other medium for girl power,” adding that the books currently on the market for eight- and nine-year-olds were too gender-defined. Jennie Garth told Us Weekly magazine that merely being a mom was all the experience she needed to compose her own picture book: “We are really great parents, if I do say so myself!” she said. “We really take it as a full-time commitment and job. . . . We take it very seriously.”

  These types of motivation — Geri’s personal agenda, Jennie’s maternal commitment — may seem endearing or even empowering, but often what results are books that are too message-driven. Or as it sometimes comes across: Just because you’re famous means you get to tell children what is right and how to be good. To those practitioners of the field who study the craft of writing for children and/or the art of illustration (not to mention those authors and illustrators who suffer through reams of rejections when submitting books and first starting out in the field), this is particularly offensive, as it derives from the notion that just about anyone who puts his or her mind to it can write a “kiddie book.” Or as author Emily Jenkins has written, “[T]he average story told by the average parent is meandering and filled with clichés. But if that parent is famous. . . then book contracts land in their laps and promotional budgets are stretched to the max, no matter how insipid the text.”

  And why do parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents fork out the cash for such books? Perhaps they want to feel a bit closer to their favorite celebrity. Publishers know this — much like the way Sesame Street invites the big-name stars onto the show to sing the alphabet. If Mom and Dad want to see their favorite sitcom star sing, it’s more likely he or she will sit down with the children to watch the show.

  Pushcart Debate: Let’s Just Get This Out of the Way: Our Votes for Worst Celebrity Children’s Title

  BETSY: If Roast Beef Could Fly by Jay Leno and Lotsa de Casha by Madonna are tied in terms of Worst Writing.

  JULIE: Gloria Estefan’s The Magically Mysterious Adventures of Noelle the Bulldog. About as subtle as a punch in the face.

  PETER: I can’t say that Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s books are any worse than, say, Jay Leno’s, Madonna’s, or Gloria Estefan’s, but I still want to single her out for something she tried to do to our libraries some years back. Someone called Dr. Laura’s radio show, outraged that public libraries allowed patrons to use their computers without (gasp) any restrictions regarding content. So, as an incentive to block adult Internet content, Schlessinger offered free posters for libraries to display in their windows. The posters said, “A Dr. Laura Family-Friendly Library.” In other words, she was trying to get her name on more libraries than Carnegie! I never heard of anything more self-serving. . . especially done under the guise of “public service.” Oh, and the children’s books she’s written are almost as bad as that ridiculous “family-friendly” endeavor.

  A CELEBRITY’S GUIDE TO WRITING FOR CHILDREN

  Ed Pilkington of the Guardian spells out some rules-of-thumb celebrities need to pass as authors: “Rule one: Why use simple names for characters when you can invent fanciful and, frankly, ridiculous ones? The celeb authors probably think they are being Dickensian, but they just come across like Salman Rushdie on one of his flowery days.” Madonna is one of the most devoted practitioners of rule one: There’s Miss Fluffernutter of her two English Roses books, Tommy Tittlebottom and Mr. Funkadeli of Mr. Peabody’s Apples, and Lotsa de Casha of her picture book of the same name. However, Azalia Christmasbubble of Whoopi Goldberg’s Whoopi’s Big Book of Manners would not like to be outdone, thanks very much, not to mention the creatures of Ricky Gervais’s Flanimals, the Wobboid Mump, Coddleflop, and Plumboid Doppler. It’s only fair to point out that many authors who didn’t start out in Hollywood do this as well, including the award-winning, abundantly talented ones — for one, Mo Willems with Reginald Von Hoobie-Doobie from Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct. But Pilkington does make a good point: the celebrity authors seem to take this one to an art form.

  Pilkington’s second rule? “[M]ake sure you have a moral point to make, and ram it home to your young readers.” Readers are hard-pressed to find a celebrity children’s book that is not message-driven, particularly when it comes to picture books. Whether Whoopi is laying down the law when it comes to manners, LeAnn Rimes is reminding children to stand up to their fears as well as their peers, or Will Smith’s telling us to go easy on the swears but to always tell the truth, most celebrity authors are engaged in what Newbery Award–winning author and former U.S. National Ambassador for Children’s Literature Katherine Paterson has called “morality divorced from wonder,” which leads to what she describes as “chilling legalism or priggish sentimentality.” Good authors, she says, do not set out to teach virtue so much as they set out to tell a story. The story may very well (and often does) include commentary in one form or fashion on how to live and behave in this world — all stories teach, and many impart wisdom — but it first and foremost sets out to tell a tale. However, many celebrities’ books fall prey to the less subtle, force-fed approach. “Celebrity-written picture books tend to go heavy on the lessons, performing as good deeds rather than good books,” writes Horn Book editor Roger Sutton. “Whether this is the result of how celebrities think about children or of how publishers think about parents, I cannot say.”

  Once again, Madonna is the teacher’s pet when it comes to this rule. Her picture books sermonize and instruct children with a heavy hand in the ways of morality, such as when Mr. Forfilla enlightens Lotsa de Casha (at the foot of Muchadougha Mountains, no less) in the ways of Coming Down Off of One’s High Horse and Sharing with Others. The fact that this comes from one of the richest women in the entertainment industry is what makes the book’s message difficult for many people to swallow.

  Children know the truth, “and they struggle with it and they despise you for giving them a sugar pill,” said the late Maurice Sendak. Masters of realism, children see things as they really are — honest and unsentimental. And what adults would want to be instructed in the ways of living every time they pick up a book, anyway? The more didactic, message-driven books also often bypass the child’s point of view altogether. Good books for children, the legendary editor Ursula Nordstrom once noted, are those written by authors who strongly recall the feelings and experiences of their own childhood. Billy Crystal’s two picture books, I Already Know I Love You and Grandpa’s Little One, are syrupy-sweet reflections on grandparenthood, told from the perspective of a grandfather smitten with his grandchild. They might be picture books in format and perhaps make the doting grandfathers of the world well up, but they fall squarely into the Love You Forever phenomenon, begging the question: Are they technically children’s literature? The young children at whom these books are ostensibly aimed haven’t been on this planet for long, unlike their grandfathers. Given that sentimentality itself could be seen as the act of anchoring value to a memory, very young children are not capable of the type of unbridled bathos seen in such books.

  Another item Pilkington could have added to his list? Disregard the usual monetary split when working on a book with an illustrator. Generally, authors and illustrators of picture books work on a fifty-fifty split. “[M]any times with celebrity authors, it’s a pure rights buyout,” said Denos. Sometimes the celebrity’s platform requests ownership of all material associated with his or her name, which gives him or her unlimited freedom with the picture-book illustrations for use in any way, while not legally bound to any royalties. “This is another ugly side of celebrity bookmaking, and illustrators and their agents should step up to protect the value and integrity of the imagery’s usage,” Denos added.

  Certainly, the Fabulous Illustrator Phenomenon often helps those books with less-than-stellar writing. Very often, these celebrity books sell well because of the screamingly talented illustrators with whom the authors are paired. Madonna’s picture books are a good example of this: she has been paired with a handful of artists capable of breathtaking palettes — from Loren L
ong to Gennady Spirin to Andrej Dugin. As for the illustrators who take on such books, no one is exempt. Even Caldecott winners have illustrated celebrity books. One of David Wiesner’s earliest books was E.T.: The Storybook of the Green Planet based on a story by Steven Spielberg. Kadir Nelson has illustrated for such big names as Spike Lee, Debbie Allen, and Will Smith.

  Denos herself had an altogether good experience illustrating her celebrity book and doesn’t go for the griping: “I understand the anti-celebrity-book sentiment in a world that seems to bend the rules for celebrities; we are wary of our beloved art form being played with. Still, I really dislike the general snobbishness about it. It’s unfair to single-handedly rule out a person’s creative ability based on their celebrity. . . . The name on the cover means nothing, and what’s between the endpapers means everything.” Author Jennifer Armstrong, who has also done some celebrity ghostwriting in her time, weighs in: “I was offered a nice sum of money for a project that would complete in a very short time frame, as the publisher wanted it in production very quickly. The numbers all made sense to me — this much money for this much time. It was always perfectly clear to me what my part of the deal was with ghostwriting, and I never felt taken advantage of with the projects I took on.” She adds: