Surely Rastamouse wins every time? Photograph: David Sillitoe.
A few days ago, an article appeared in G2 bewailing the fact that so many celebrities had taken to writing children's books. Ed Pilkington gave us to understand that the books were, by and large, bobbins. The strong implication was that they'd been produced as an exercise in moneymaking by the publisher, and Francesca Dow of Puffin was quoted as saying that the moolah generated by the sale of, for instance, a picture book by Madonna was subsidising other, less stellar writers.
But why on earth devote the two front pages of G2 to promoting most spectacularly the very books and writers (or non-writers) you're slagging off? Goodness knows, even with the best efforts of the Guardian Review, there is precious little space devoted to proper criticism of children's books, so to throw away 2,000 words on not-very-good books seems... well, quite barmy. Why not, instead, use this prime site to promote six or seven very good picture books coming out in time for the festive season? Or six or seven picture books which have been unjustly neglected? Or six or seven picture books which we know are classics? Or anything at all really, rather than highlighting rubbish? Why would you want to do that?
The celebrity books will be bought by the people who are impressed by celebrity... those who are not deluded in this way should be encouraged to avoid them at all costs, but that's best done by starving the stars of the notorious 'oxygen of publicity.' Nothing annoys professional writers more than some luvvie swanning in, especially at this time of year, and scooping up all the available space, both on bookshop tables and in print. The injustice makes us grind our teeth, because there's more than a good chance that our books are better!
I have to confess that I've never actually read a book by a celebrity. One or two of them might be fine... that's not impossible, I suppose. If a celeb has written a good book, then bully for them, but my point stands. Most won't have, I guarantee. This is because everybody thinks that it must be the easiest thing in the world to write a children's picture book, when in fact it's almost the hardest. You can see why stars like the sound of it: the book is going to be very short and much more speedily turned out than your average adult novel. But alas, the text will be read aloud so often that the words need to have the weight and heft and resonance of poetry. What you get if it doesn't is a dazzlingly-illustrated volume which has you crawling up the walls with boredom after a few repetitions. The fact that there are so many picture books which are still fresh after multiple readings is a credit to the enormous talent of the many, many writers and artists we have working in this country. I could compile a list, but won't for the moment. I invite readers to list their favourites in the comments boxes. You'll be able to choose a great many presents from among them and ensure lots of fun and happiness for both readers and read-tos for nights and nights to come.
PS. À propos of Kathryn Hughes's blog asking why serious books don't get published at Christmas time... look no further than the November Abyss. This is a concept I invented to describe the hole books fell into if they were brought out any time around Christmas. It's a fact that minds (booksellers' as well as everyone else's) become clogged up with tinselly, snow-sprinkled, red-nosed, jovial and generally ultra-Yuletidey thoughts from November 1 onwards, and anything falling outside this category vanishes off the radar even more quickly than most books usually do.
