Celebrities and Literature

The article written by Linda Park brings up a very strong point against the success of celebrity authors. I completely agree that just because someone is a celebrity does no mean that their book should be published and force fed to children. One of the most famous cliches says that you should never judge a book by its cover so then I too believe a book should not be judged by its author. Each book is an individual work of art and should be analyzed and looked at by what that individual book brings to the proverbial table of children's literature.

As Park says it is exceedingly hard to write for children and write well by not underestimating the audience. Children should be tested and urged to expand their literature skills with more challenging and fulfilling literature. I don't believe that there is any value in children reading a book solely because it has been written by some celebrity that they or their parents happen to know the name of.

I do believe, however, that this is not just the fault of the publisher. Personally I would lay most of the blame upon the children's parents who have gone out and chosen to by this celebrity literature. The publishers are simply out to make money and no less can be expected in a consumer economy like ours. When parents go to buy literature for their children they should look at book reviews and see what the critics and educated readers have to say about certain books. From the reviews parents would more knowledge on the type of books that their children should be reading.

This is also the case with teachers and schools. Education should be built around challenging the students to excel and read books that offer the most benefit not the most entertainment. The more skilled and knowledgeable students become with literature the more entertainment they will have reading challenging and deep literature. It is crucial to the development of young readers that children do not waste time reading poorly written books. I believe that only in the school system would it be effective to get rid of celebrity novels by requiring the reading of well written novels by exceedingly talented authors. In this way it is possible that celebrity novels will lose their value and slowly fade from the shelves they currently dominate.