You know, we may have our differences. You may like one book, and I may hate another, but there's something out there that brings all children's literature lovers together. A unified disgust, as it were, with celebrity authors. Oh sure, each of us has that one celebrity we don't mind reading all that much. Maybe you've a weakness for The Fonz or don't mind it when Julie Edwards Andrews picks up a pen.
Oh! And SPEAKING of Ms. Andrews (tangent time) I would like to thank my dear friend Marci for pointing out to me that the NYC children's bookstore Books of Wonder was hosting Child Magazine's 6th Annual Best Children's Book Awards. Unfortunately, I got Marci's message too late and never had a chance to see Ms. Andrews alive and in the flesh. Doggone it.
Back to reality here. As I was saying, we all forgive one celebrity author or another, but after a while you just can't hold back your rage. As such MotherReader has granted us a boon. She's created BACA (Bloggers Against Celebrity Authors). One wonders what the benefits of being a card-carrying member might be. I'm hoping it might run along the lines of being given full authority to someday see an offender at a cocktail party and get to whack them into blissful unconsciousness with the travesty of a book they've created. Or is that a bit much?
I once polled the child_lit listserv to see what celebrity book was the best of the lot. My favorite answer was the person who said that Fred Gwynne (the dad from the Munsters) did marvelous work. Yay, Gwynne! I'll make him my own personal favorite celebrity author.
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By: Betsy Bird,
on 2/1/2007
Blog: A Fuse #8 Production (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Celebrity Authors, Books of Wonder, Julie Andrews V. Fred Gwynne In a Fight To the Finish, Add a tag
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By: Betsy Bird,
on 2/1/2007
Blog: A Fuse #8 Production (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Celebrity Authors, Books of Wonder, Julie Andrews V. Fred Gwynne In a Fight To the Finish, Add a tag
11 Comments on Support Your Local BACA Organization, last added: 2/2/2007
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Here, Here! I love The King Who Rained. Fred Gwynne gets my vote too!
I'll go with the Fonz -- my eight year old loves his books, the series is set in my own dear neighborhood, and his co-author, Lin Oliver, gets her name right up there with his.
(My general view: the bigger the celebrity, the worse the book.)
Arthur Howard, of Square One fame! (Or, "fame.")
Did he play George on "Mathnet"?
Did he play George on "Mathnet"?
Doggone it. Where'd that useful little trash can go that allows me to delete repeat comments? Curse you, Blogger!
If I was truly dedicated to this joke, I'd repeat this particular posting twice. Sadly, I'm not.
No, he was one of the regulars on the show.
I now have the full guidelines, as requested by many interested parties, in a new post. Thanks, Fuse, for your BACA support.
I absolutely LOVE Julie Andrews' Mandy. It was a book that I read as a child that stood out to me as magical, and last year my daughter and I read it together.
Their 3rd grade teacher just read The Last of the Great Whangdoodles to the class, and my daughter loved that, too.
I can think of quite a few who annoy me, though. I didn't know about the Fonz--I might check him out.
This made me laugh out loud: "I'm hoping it might run along the lines of being given full authority to someday see an offender at a cocktail party and get to whack them into blissful unconsciousness with the travesty of a book they've created." Thanks!
John Lithgow's okay.
By the way, it's a corrolary...coralary...corolary... branch of celebrities-who-publish- their-poetry.