Jamie Oliver and the Epic Fail

Jamie Oliver apologises after his children’s book is criticised for ‘stereotyping’ First Nations Australians.

THIS.

This is the difference between appropriation and appreciation. There are some stories which are not yours to tell. And if you are determined to tell it, at least do some basic Googling to understand the culture you’re trying to profit from!

This is also a case in point of why good children’s literature stands the test of time despite an over-saturated market. It’s a personal gripe of mine that many celebrities have tried their hand at writing for children, disregarding the legacy that children’s fiction holds. One of the biggest contradictions I find as a children’s literature scholar is that children’s books are simultaneously expected to be used to aid childhood development and teach children about emotions, social rules, different cultures, behavioural codes and communication and yet are often patronised as ‘just being for children’. Many kidlit titles are often critiqued or scrutinised for a lack of moral lesson or a the teaching of a questionable one. But even if a children’s book passes this litmus test, they are still generally regarded as unimportant compared to “real” literature (think: The Great American Novel) because of the age of the audience.

I don’t understand it. These books are meant to teach children about the world, and also shouldn’t be taken too seriously? Make it make sense!

It appears to me that celebrities from all fields (radio presenters, chefs, musicians, actors, television personalities) are writing for kids (or having ghostwriters use their name/brand) apparently because it’s seen as an easy venture… (I have recently blogged about two such presenters-cum-children’s-authors writing a follow-on to Dahl’s The Twits.) But examples like the above really prove how valuable children’s literature can be, and also how devastating the results are when it goes wrong.

Genuine question. If you were to think of a lovely children’s book, or your own favourite children’s book, how many would be from the past 50 years? How many from the past 15 years? The past 5?

How many of those are written by celebrities who have tried their hand at children’s fiction, or are they written by children’s authors? There is a reason that books from the twentieth century remain in annual bestseller lists well into the 2020s, despite a a colourful and over-saturated market. These aren’t always good reasons (many parents I’m sure gravitate towards books they read thirty-odd years ago, even if they now hold outdated descriptions and views) like legacy and nostalgia…

This leads me to think about the uproar about the censorship and revisions on Dahl’s children’s literature. There was a media furore to such an extent that Puffin backtracked and instead of editing all future editions of Dahl’s books they would create a separate line so that adult/child readers could pick the un/censored versions for themselves. (The pessimist in me believes this was the plan all along and is another way of cleverly picking up more revenue from Dahl’s books, but that is by the by.) But Oliver’s book hadn’t received the same sensitivity treatment, despite sharing the same publisher (Penguin Random House). Did the editors and publishers believe that Oliver’s book didn’t need the same degree of interrogation (who would take a children’s novel written by the man who deprived young’uns of Turkey Twizzlers, after all)? Or did they seriously not see the problem, despite having not long spent an unspecified (but surely enormous) sum on the retroactive sensitivity checks on Dahl’s works?

The contradiction continues: It’s a children’s book, so it needs to be sensitive; but you, reader, are being more sensitive than necessary.

The Guardian article is a good read – some very thoughtful comments in there (I personally love the ‘cultural safety’ turn of phrase used by the chief exec of Natsiec).