The US publisher of Harlan Coben and Meg Rosoff has announced a new celebrity recruit: the Grammy award-winning musician Pharrell Williams.
Putnam Books for young Readers announced on Tuesday that Williams has signed up for four picture books, starting with a celebration of childhood inspired by his hit song Happy.
It said it planned a first print run of 250,000 copies of Happy, which will be published on 22 September, and will feature photographs of children from around the world “celebrating what it means to be happy”.
The 41-year-old singer-songwriter is the father of a six-year-old boy. He has won 10 Grammys, including two for Happy, which featured on the soundtrack of Despicable Me 2 and was an Oscar nominee last year for best song. In September 2014 it became the most downloaded track ever in the UK.
Putnam, an imprint of Penguin, is no stranger to inspirational works by Grammy award-winners: it also published Dolly Parton’s children’s book I Am a Rainbow, while its adult division was behind Parton’s Dream More, which urged readers to to “dream more, learn more, care more, and be more”.
