Celebrities writing children's books

[ladyofastolat]

To all you page 3 girls, faded pop stars and former soap actors currently writing children's books... Please stop it. Publishers, please stop publishing them. Public, please stop buying them. Please get your horrid cult of celebrity out of the world of children's books. Grrr!!!!!
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Oh, and while I'm here: Overheard in the office: "Have you got the wire cutters?" "We need one of those sharp sticky things." "And baby wipes!" "Have you dealt with the police?"

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Couldn't agree more.

And stop publishing their ghost written so-called adult chick lit and thrillers, while you are about it.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Yup. I don't object quite so violently to celebrity adult books, since at least the adults who read them are those who make the buying decisions. I object to children's books written by celebrities that won't actually appeal to the children's themselves. It's a clear attempt to get the mums and aunties and grandmas to buy these books for the children they know, regardless of whether the children like them.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I'd like the influence of brand management culture to be reduced. The thought behind all these celebrity-written books is surely the idea that one kind of celebrity is much like another, so there is no point in building up the reputation of a writer known for writing when notoriety from another field will do as well.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Sadly, this appears to be all too true. A known name is all it takes. Actually, I wouldn't object quite so badly if the marketing was aimed at children. I could imagine that a reluctant 11 year old boy reader might well be turned onto reading if his favourite footballer "wrote" a book - though I'd rather they stick with the already established promotional tool of getting the footballers etc. to be photograped reading books written by people who can actually write. What particularly bothers me is that most of the celebrity children's authors are ones likely to appeal to the parents. The child's own likes and dislikes are not likely to feature much in the decision to buy/borrow these books.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

Oh and could someone please nuke Disney?

[gileswench.livejournal.com]

Could I press the button? Pretty please with sugar on top?

[firin.livejournal.com]

After I'm there in August in Florida, please! I'll probably be nuke-the-Rat happy myself after that.

[gileswench.livejournal.com]

How's September for you? I've got a birthday coming up then.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

That seems a bit unsubtle. I'd prefer a discreet and insidious infiltration campaign, that will culminate in the planting of subliminal satanic messages in all their wholesome fare... and then tipping off all the moral campaigners. Then we can sit back and watch the fallout, all the while cackling quietly and stroking our cat.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

Just cut out stage one and tip off the moral campaigners anyway- it isn't as though they actually need evidence before they do things!

[(Anonymous)]

You don't like Disney? I must admit Katy has a bunch of Disney DVDs (alle auf Deutsch:) and enjoys them hugely -- we were watching a snippet of "Lilo and Stitch" this morning over breakfast, I must confess. (Bad, BAD mammy....) - Neuromancer

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

I find a lot of Disney mawkishly sentimental- especially the books.

Pixar is diferent and seems to have more of a sense of humour, but Disney is just a bit too saccharine for me.

BTW- fancy joining the Badparents community?!?

[chelemby.livejournal.com]

Just as long as we don't include John Lithgow in that category of writers, I am fine! :-D

I rather like his books. ;-)

[gileswench.livejournal.com]

I'd also let Julie Andrews (who writes her kid books under the name Julie Edwards) survive the winnowing. Not only are her books pretty good, she writes them under her married name so as not to bank purely on her celebrity to sell them.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

That's okay, then. I'll let her off! I'm sure there are celebrities who can write pretty good books, and it seems unfair to ban them from writing for life just because they happened to go into acting, or whatever, first.

[gileswench.livejournal.com]

Precisely! Many people are multi-talented and should definitely feel free to use all those talents.

OTOH, there are entirely too many people who are famous for one thing (all too often being famous) who write books aimed at kids and turn out to have even less talent for that than they did for acting or being a member of the royal family, or whatever they did before they wrote the books.

[gileswench.livejournal.com]

I'm with you, Lady.

If someone known for something else is actually a good writer, then fine. I have no problem with that. But dear God! the horrible excuses for reading material that litter our bookshelves purely because the author had a hit TV series or - worse yet - used to be married to someone famous appalls me.