A Fresh Look at Kiddie Lit -- Not the Kind That Comes in a Box!

Writing juvenile literature is an arduous task. Only masters of the craft and movie stars are suited for this line of work. After a lifetime of toil, a writer may hit pay dirt, but then feel compelled thereafter to live off the fumes of that triumph. Downeaster Robert McCloskey had a great hit with Make Way for Ducklings, the iconic classic tale about a family of ducks living on Boston's Beacon Hill in the 1940s. But it proved too daunting for McCloskey to top the success of that work with anything remotely approaching the airy brilliance of the original. The two sequels --"Make Way for Pâté" and "Make Way for Fois Gras," weren't big sellers and were said to have frightened the children. The books soon went out of print.

Harold and the Purple Crayon, another staple of the toddler canon, suffered a similar fate. The story is charming enough -- a bored little boy in his pajamas creates adventures for himself with a purple crayon, and after thrilling to some narrow escapes from wild beasts and the like, draws himself back to bed falling safely to sleep. But who today remembers "Harold and the Invisible Ink?" (the captions didn't help) or even worse -- "Harold and Abbot & Costello in Casablanca"? It's sad just to think about it. Soon after that last-mentioned fiasco, Harold was being booed off stages at third rate county fairs where even the prized heifers were embarrassed to be seen with a one-dimensional has-been.

The big conundrum for children's book authors is that their audience soon outgrows them and starts spending their time reading nutrition labels for kicks. Some years back, in an effort to stave off irrelevance, publishers hit upon a scheme to keep their markets not only engaged, but coming back for more. The secret? Make the reader the star of the book. Banking on the supposition that most people are narcissists, authors of junior fiction now routinely prepare templates that allow the consumer to insert a proper name at key plot points. Hence, the young "adult" is not simply following along with the story, but becomes the story. The offering infra illustrates the principle:

~~~~~~~~~~____________'s Amazing Discovery

One day, ____________ came home from the transfer station and noticed an unusual scraping noise coming from the downstairs bathroom. _____________ pushed open the door, and said, "Is that you, Kitty?" As was his custom, Kitty howled like a demon in heat, jumped on __________'s head, scampered away through the pet door hard by where the garbage cans were clustered, and ran off to slaughter some rodents. "Crikey!" thought ____________. "I see that Kitty made liberal use of his box, and yet it smells like a rose garden. No wonder Kitty thinks so highly of himself!" _____________ sat down at the kitchen table to compose a note of praise to Bubbe's Ole' Fashioned Pet Lavs when, suddenly, there was a loud knock at the window. _________ tried to ignore it at first, but after 45 minutes of incessant rapping, it started to grate on ___________'s nerves. ______________ opened the curtain and there stood __________'s best friend, [NAME OF FRIEND], sporting a look of excitement. ______________ loosened the chain on the front door and opened it a crack -- just enough to be able to exchange a few terse words with [NAME OF FRIEND] without giving the impression that this was some kind of invitation to be admitted to the premises. "I have discovered something amazing that could make us both rich beyond our wildest imaginations!" squealed [NAME OF FRIEND]. It was at this moment that _____________ realized intuitively that the nature of proprietary trade secrets was very much a grey area.

(Excerpted from "The Magic Kitty Litter" © 2011 Bubbe's Ole' Fashioned Pet Lavs. All Rights reserved).

Lest one consider the above sample to be nothing more than representative of a crass marketing ploy, it should be realized that the referenced chapter is the wave of the future. The beauty part is that readers can jettison friends and relatives, convert to exotic religions, and change their names, and so forth, but the stories will always remain as fresh as they were as the day they were first downloaded, because the variable fields can be adapted to evolving social situations.

When published works fall into the public domain, we can expect to see an exciting catalogue of familiar titles spruced up and made good as new: "The Cat in the Hat and _________," "Goodnight Moon, Try Not to Snore, You Might Wake _______ Up," and "The Little Taxi That Hurried (And Almost Ran Over ____'s Foot.)" The prospects for growth in this industry are limitless -- and why shouldn't they be? The rest of the news is so horrible, we only want to read about ourselves, anyway.

Even ________ knows that!