The Children's Literature Podcast

ANOTHER celebrity has decided to dabble in writing for children. Whooptie-doo. In more exciting news, co-host Chloë has checked out not just one Max Crumbly book from the library to read during the school break but also THREE volumes of the Dork Diaries by Rachel Renee Russell.

Opinion: Another Celebrity Children’s Book

I spotted a literary kerfuffle in the news. Actress Kiera Knightley has written a children’s book. Whooptie-doo. I Love You Just the Same is set to come out in a year, and it tackles a truly groundbreaking topic – the way family dynamics change when a new baby arrives. This shouldn’t really be a story. I don’t mean talking about how families change – that’s always a good premise for a book. I mean that nobody should be impressed that yet another actress told herself, what the heck, how hard can it be to write a book for kids? Though I guess it’s extra tedious that she thought she would illustrate it too.

Nah, this is all old news. The real story here is the amount of backlash Knightley is getting. With the announcement came loud groans of annoyance from actual children’s authors as well as critics, who are fed up with celebrity dabblers being able to get a book deal at the drop of a name while lesser known authors with far better writing skills struggle in the background.

Lots of celebrities, usually actors, have done this over the years. After all, they make a living pretending to be other people, so it’s not surprising that some of them take method acting to an extreme and try to become authors of children’s books. Megan Markle, Keith Richards, and even Madonna have all written children’s books. I will just say that they attempted quite the career pivot. Attempted.

Just a thought: if you aren’t a writer, maybe suppress the hubris that makes you think you can just dive right in and write a children’s book without taking the time to build any skills in writing for kids. Children aren’t stupid. They aren’t defective adults. They are young. They are inexperienced. They are still developing. But if anything, that means they deserve superior books to read to set them on the right course in life. And just because they’re half grown doesn’t mean they can’t recognize a bad story when they see one. Based on my own experience reading to kids, they’ll let you know when a story stinks.

There are famous people like, say, David Walliams, who turn from a career of writing and performing comedy shows for television to one of writing comedy books for children. I don’t consider Walliams’ work to rise to the level of literature. It’s not complex enough for me to analyze or recommend for a class to read as part of school curriculum. And that’s totally fine. He writes funny, trivial, entertaining books for kids. This reflects the funny, trivial, entertaining stuff he wrote for adults in Little Britain, which was his best known writing and acting gig. Not everything should be deep. Sometimes we just want to laugh.

The reason Walliams been able to build a successful career writing for children is that he wasn’t stretching that far beyond what he’d already done as an actor. He knew how to write and perform comedy. He stuck to writing comedy. Pivoting from an audience of adults to one of children wasn’t that big a of a deal for David Walliams because he stayed true to the same silly, fun, over-the-top comedy that he has always done. Had he tried to write serious dark fantasy, I am quite sure his books would not be very successful.

There are other actors who try their hand at writing and do well at it. Richard Armitage recently published his first novel, a mystery thriller for grownups. I haven’t had the chance to read it yet but I’m not surprised by the reviews that say it’s quite good. Armitage is in the middle of a solid career playing serious roles for grownup audiences, and he has used that buttery smooth voice to record the audio versions of dozens and dozens of books written by many different authors. This is someone who has spent a long time reading, thinking about, and performing stories that tend to be serious, complex, and targeted at adults. So he stuck with that when writing a book. And to nobody’s surprise, it worked.

We can contrast that with the . . . I have to say it . . . garbage that has been put out by famous people who regrettably don’t understand where their talents lie. I am an unabashed fangirl of Julie Andrews. This woman is an absolute treasure and every moment of her performing career is a gift to the arts. But her children’s books? They’re . . . well, you’ve probably not heard much about them, and there’s a reason for that.

A lot of famous people don’t even really write their books at all. Publishing houses know they can make a lot of money off of a famous name, and so they hire a real writer to do the actual work. What you end up with is a book that has a celebrity name in bold letters and then a much smaller name underneath. We all know who did the real work here. I don’t think this is a problem when famous people are doing autobiographies. There are many people who have fascinating life stories, but because they aren’t writers they need someone who can help them organize and streamline a huge amount of information, presenting it in the right order and at the right pace.

I’ve read the autobiography of Ozzy Osbourne several times. It’s fantastic and funny and full of stuff that is so crazy it must be true. And it really benefited from the help of co-author Chris Ayres. Osbourne has dyslexia, which makes reading and writing difficult for him. There’s some really touching passages early in the book when you see how much he struggled as a very poor kid in a suburb of Birmingham, unable to do well in school and not getting any help at all for what is a pretty common condition. Ozzy not only needed a skilled writer to help him organize a massive story, but also to help him write the darn words in the first place. But this isn’t the case for most celebrity authors who decide on a whim to write a book, dump the work on a servant, and then expect to be praised.

The worst kind of celebrity writing is when it’s little more than a branding exercise. Emma Thompson, whose work on the screen I have always enjoyed, has lent her name to more than one franchise aimed at consumers who buy stuff for children. She “created” a book series called Felicity Wishes, but the actual amount of writing she has done for it is pretty low. It’s more about selling merch than creating literature, which is fair enough, but as a reader, mom, and advocate for literature, I am unimpressed.

Thompson has also joined in the very successful commercialization of Beatrix Potter’s writing. With almost all of the original books in the public domain, The World of Beatrix Potter has cleverly put out new toys, merchandise, and books based on her original characters. This results in a new set of stuff that is under copyright and can generate profit for decades. I don’t have a problem with that. The stuff they make is really cute and it helps keep Potter’s work in the public mind. The money also supports their headquarters in the Lake District, which provides a wonderful book-based attraction where families can explore a replica of Mr. McGregor’s garden, go to theater performances, and enjoy the beautiful landscapes that inspired Beatrix Potter. The World of Beatrix Potter also supports several very good charities.

So they should keep selling that merch, but parents and teachers should keep in mind that all these new books that say “World of Beatrix Potter” instead of “Beatrix Potter” on the front are just content. They’re totally fine to read to your kids, but they are pretty disposable in terms of their literary quality. I really don’t understand why they would bother paying for a big celebrity like Emma Thompson in the first place. I don’t think a three year old cares that  much about her name when wanting you to read The Christmas Tale of Peter Rabbit for the seventeenth time. In April.

I’d put this same kind of warning on books that say “Inspired by Roald Dahl” or “The World of Eric Carle.” There’s nothing wrong with buying and enjoying these books, which are inspired by an author’s work. But if you are making educational selections for children, please remember that these titles are merch, not literature. They are designed to be consumed and tossed so that another derivative work can be quickly published and sold. They will never be of a high enough quality to be used as part of a classroom lesson. Also, by including these derivative works in curriculum, parents and teachers could accidentally lead children to believe that these second generation products are the work of the real author. That could have a bad effect on how young readers view a great children’s writer.

So unfortunately for Kiera Knightley, book nerds are going to be focusing their ire on her, despite the fact that this problem didn’t start with her. She’s just one more example of someone with no background in writing leveraging her fame and power to indulge her whim to dabble.

I think it’s great that she took up writing. I think everyone should experiment with it. The problem I have is that without her famous name, her novel would never even have been looked at by a publisher. She’ll sell a few copies, and then her book will be added to the shelf labeled “mediocre books by celebrities.”

And while this happens, lots of truly talented writers who have spent time learning the art of writing for children will be ignored. So I think the best way to combat this problem is first, as consumers, we need to hold back before purchasing a book just because there is a famous name on the cover. Find out if it’s actually any good before spending your money. But it would be even better if you looked past a glitzy celebrity and tried to find lesser known writers who have crafted something really impressive. It will mean a lot more if you give them your time and money. I’ll be on the lookout for their books, and I hope that you will be too. In fact, I would love to get your recommendations for books that deserve to be better known. So what’s your favorite children’s title that more people should hear about? Let’s get talking about people who have been hard at work making great things for kids but don’t get a free pass to the top of the publishing world.