{"id":181237,"date":"2025-10-06T05:34:28","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T05:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/181237\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T05:34:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T05:34:28","slug":"the-celebrity-picture-book-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/181237\/","title":{"rendered":"The Celebrity Picture Book Boom"},"content":{"rendered":"

This flaw is also present in directives for authenticity like Matthew McConaughey\u2019s \u201cJust Because<\/a>,\u201d a whirlwind of unobjectionable truisms (\u201cJust because you threw shade, doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m out of the sun\u201d), and \u201cThe World Needs More Purple People<\/a>,\u201d by Kristen Bell and Benjamin Hart. Purple people are the best sort of people (somewhere, Ann of \u201cAnn Likes Red\u201d is weeping into a crimson tissue). Their characteristics include using one\u2019s voice, gardening, working \u201csuper-duper hard,\u201d being handy, and asking questions befitting a dating app: \u201cHave you ever met a dolphin?\u201d The book is thoroughly executed, positing many routes to cyanosis, but in tackling everything, it grips nothing. I haven\u2019t felt such pressure to be abstractly wonderful since \u201cI Promise<\/a>,\u201d by LeBron James, in which readers are encouraged to \u201cbe a team player and a winner.\u201d Collections of agreeable statements can create a loose sense of camaraderie. But so can watching a stranger with toilet paper stuck to their shoe, and at least there\u2019s a story there.<\/p>\n

None of these books lead with \u201cchildren should be seen and not heard,\u201d because none of them were written by my maternal grandmother. So the question is not \u201cWhat vile lessons are these famous people propagating?\u201d but \u201cWhat are they offering instead?\u201d \u201cPeanut Goes for the Gold<\/a>,\u201d by Jonathan Van Ness<\/a>, of \u201cQueer Eye,\u201d is also about uniqueness but with a raison d\u2019\u00eatre. Peanut is perhaps the first nonbinary rhythmic-gymnast guinea pig in literary history. On one level, the book exists for its description. On another, it exists to get kids in the habit of using someone\u2019s preferred pronouns, even if that someone is a domesticated rodent in a leotard. Alas, the innovation ends there. \u201cPeanut has their own way of doing things,\u201d the book states, meaning that Peanut likes doing cartwheels on a basketball court. During a gymnastics competition, Peanut sticks their landing. They get a perfect score from every judge.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s illuminating to compare \u201cPeanut Goes for the Gold,\u201d an individualism book, with John Cena\u2019s \u201cElbow Grease<\/a>,\u201d a perseverance book. \u201cElbow Grease\u201d is the story of the smallest truck at the demolition derby. Even with all the gumption in the world, the eponymous Elbow Grease does not win his climactic race. His proffered lesson is more nuanced: \u201cIf you only stick with what you\u2019re good at, you\u2019ll never learn anything.\u201d Elbow Grease and Peanut face different challenges: one is waiting for a growth spurt, the other is waiting on the world to change. Elbow Grease has the luxury of setbacks; Peanut needs the win. But all children deserve the pleasure of suspense.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more under the hood in Dale Earnhardt, Jr.,\u2019s \u201cBuster and the Race Car Graveyard<\/a>,\u201d the platonic ideal of a perseverance book. Buster and his friends are ninety-nine per cent anthropomorphization, one per cent inspiration. Their favorite activities are arbitrarily assigned (telling ghost stories, picking pumpkins). But the descriptions of the graveyard are downright Saundersian. Branches crackle, roots gnarl, dried leaves swirl through the pages. The cars are startled by a\u00a0ghost car named Brenda (a perfectly imperfect name), who introduces them to other friendly ghost vehicles, most of whom have experienced deadly crashes and now honk funny. The book is about bravery, though there\u2019s a tonal funkiness to espousing the merits of driving two hundred and eighty miles per hour to \u201cages 4 to 8.\u201d Perceptive parents will know that Dale Earnhardt, the author\u2019s father, died in 2001 when his car slammed into a retaining wall on the Daytona International Speedway. This is a son\u2019s jaunty fantasy of the afterlife.<\/p>\n

Such depth is lacking from the actress Eva Mendes\u2019s saccharine \u201cDesi, Mami, and the Never-Ending Worries<\/a>,\u201d which fits squarely into the subgenre of mental perseverance. Desi has trouble falling asleep because of an endless cycle of intrusive thoughts about monsters. After her mother takes a tumble into existentialism (\u201cWhat if you tried to separate yourself from your thoughts?\u201d), Desi, like Buster, faces her fears. This book\u2019s rightful home is in the waiting room of a child psychologist\u2019s office, where it should be presented in the same spirit with which Dum-Dums are left in a dentist\u2019s reception area. And yet, we have ourselves a noble motivation, encouraging anxious children to harness the power of their imaginations. \u201cDesi\u201d wants to help. But is that enough?<\/p>\n

If children reject or embrace these books, they do so without all this hand-wringing. As for myself, an adult allowing mounds of celebrity picture books into her home for the first time, I grew curious and curiouser: Was I expecting too much from these lighthearted tales by shiny people? Where, in the vast expanse between a Caldecott Medal and a googly eye, should these titles be situated? Even in success (such as Reese Witherspoon\u2019s \u201cBusy Betty<\/a>\u201d and Jimmy Fallon\u2019s \u201cPapa Doesn\u2019t Do Anything!<\/a>,\u201d both lively blends of individualism and perseverance), best in group is not the same as best in show.<\/p>\n

I needed metrics. So I immersed myself in Sendak and Snicket. I polled friends about what they fed into the minds of their own progeny and received lists so formidable, I stopped asking. While I can now vouch for recent hits such as Ryan T. Higgins\u2019s \u201cWe Don\u2019t Eat Our Classmates<\/a>\u201d and Drew Daywalt\u2019s \u201cThe Day the Crayons Quit<\/a>,\u201d as well as enchanting deep cuts like \u201cHow Little Lori Visited Times Square<\/a>,\u201d by Amos Vogel, and \u201cThe Little Island<\/a>,\u201d by Margaret Wise Brown<\/a>, my critical faculties emerged no sharper, dealing, as I was, with a different species of book. In these works by professional authors, there\u2019s a deference to children that\u2019s absent from their media-savvy counterparts. \u201cThe Day the Crayons Quit\u201d is epistolary, featuring protest letters from overused crayons, with yellow and orange vying to be the rightful color of the sun. \u201cHow Little Lori Visited Times Square\u201d is about a kid with a modest case of wanderlust who befriends a talking turtle. It ends with a cliffhanger, giving young readers a chance to do what they do best: wonder.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t going to clarify my stance on this pervasive publishing trend by avoiding it. Had I learned nothing from the perseverance books? The only way to get the whole picture was to face my fears and dive down, down, down, past the tutus and the ghost cars, down, down, down, to the very bottom of the narrative well: to books that espouse neither individualism nor perseverance. These are stories that have generously liberated themselves from the pretense of being for children. Hold on to your ballots: these titles tend to come from political figures or their spouses, authors who beam themselves into flawless family units as proofs of concept for broader political convictions.<\/p>\n

In Chasten Buttigieg\u2019s \u201cPapa\u2019s Coming Home<\/a>,\u201d Rosie and Jojo plan for the return of their papa, who has been on the road. What\u2019s he been doing on the road? Who can say, but a calendar stuck to the refrigerator reads \u201cpapa in Mishuhgen.\u201d It\u2019s time to pull out all the stops (and the glitter) to prepare for Papa\u2019s arrival. The children bake a seven-layer cake, which is six more layers than this story has. With the help of their dad, Papa\u2019s partner, they load up the car with gifts until there\u2019s hardly any room for Papa to sit. What else is there to say? Someone sure did bind this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This flaw is also present in directives for authenticity like Matthew McConaughey\u2019s \u201cJust Because,\u201d a whirlwind of unobjectionable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[44496,457,6491,35750,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-181237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-authors","tag-books","tag-celebrities","tag-childrens-books","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}