This week, I am reviewing When I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old's Memoir of Her Youth by Jamie Lee Curtis. Funny... There is a very talented actress that is also named Jamie Lee Curtis. You would think that since that name is already taken, this author would come up with some sort of a pen name. Wait, what? This is the same Jamie Lee Curtis that is a famous actress? Why the heck is she writing children's books? This book review will serve to illuminate the rationale behind 1 of 3 of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to literature. That pet peeve is the celebrity author.
The setting: The mind of a small child
The characters: Who cares?! This book was written by somebody that can act, so it must be good!
Celebrity authors become authors of books for one of two reasons. Either they didn't write the book at all but their name is being used as the author to sell more books by a ghost writer.... or they actually wrote the book and somehow managed to get it published. I actually believe Jamie Lee Curtis did the second one. Here is a person that has been in television shows, big budget movies, and Activia commercials... but this is a children's book. How does any of that experience translate into being an author? Hint.... it doesn't.
Brilliant. Jamie Lee Curtis really has a way with words. Seriously, you gain a ton of skills and experience in one thing every single day of your life and then you turn around and do something completely different. The only reason you would do that is because you think that writing children's books is a challenge that you can easily overcome. In fact, even the President of the Untied States has written a children's book called Of Thee I Sing available at (Amazon for $12.95.) The freaking President wrote a children's book in all his spare time because evidently writing children's books is something you can do between a briefing on how everybody wants to destroy America and a briefing on how the national debt is going to destroy America.
Something I forgot to mention in that last paragraph is why celebrity authors annoy me, especially when it comes to children's books. Do you see the page above? That is a shining example of how this book completely sucks. That little girl is taking a bath and shaving her leg with a cucumber facial mask on. Could you please stereotype little girls in a more offensive way, Jamie? Why don't you have the girl baking a pie or something?
These celebrities that write children's books do so because they think it is a challenge that they can meet, but they are completely wrong. It is not extremely hard to write a children's book, but it is monumentally hard to write a good one. Also, this child's parents let her eat Chee-tos? These are the worst parents ever. There are over 6 billion people on earth and of those 6 billion people, the most skilled and trained and experienced writers are all vying to have children's books published. They are spending hundreds of thousands of hours writing and rewriting and coming up with new concepts and ideas for connecting with children... but the celebrity author bypasses all of that hard work and studying. They jump the line because of their name and ultimately sell an inferior product to people at a higher cost.
Okay, this four year old is just obnoxious. You are four years old and you think you "know" who you are already? Wow. The process of self discovery is a life long journey that can never really be achieved. The Chinese culture has a word "kaizan" which loosely translates to mean continuous improvement. The embodiment of the term means that you never really achieve what you're searching for because you are always searching to be better at what you do. There is always a next step. There is always a higher goal that you should set your sights on as an individual person or a corporation as a whole, and this four year old little girl has reached her maximum potential at the ripe old age of four? I don't think so.
In summation, who cares what happened in the book? It was written by Jamie Lee Curtis! She was in that show that one time, so this book must be good! However, it isn't. It kind of sucks, especially when the little girl is riding in the back seat of her car without a car seat or booster. She has horrible parents. Unfortunately, Lily actually really likes this book, so she gives it 5 out of 5 stars. It is available at Amazon for $6.29: $4.00 for the book and $2.29 that pays for the celebrity endorsement. Happy reading!
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