Support Your Local BACA Organization

You know, we may have our differences. You may like one book, and I may hate another, but there's something out there that brings all children's literature lovers together. A unified disgust, as it were, with celebrity authors. Oh sure, each of us has that one celebrity we don't mind reading all that much. Maybe you've a weakness for The Fonz or don't mind it when Julie Edwards Andrews picks up a pen.

Oh! And SPEAKING of Ms. Andrews (tangent time) I would like to thank my dear friend Marci for pointing out to me that the NYC children's bookstore Books of Wonder was hosting Child Magazine's 6th Annual Best Children's Book Awards. Unfortunately, I got Marci's message too late and never had a chance to see Ms. Andrews alive and in the flesh. Doggone it.

Back to reality here. As I was saying, we all forgive one celebrity author or another, but after a while you just can't hold back your rage. As such MotherReader has granted us a boon. She's created BACA (Bloggers Against Celebrity Authors). One wonders what the benefits of being a card-carrying member might be. I'm hoping it might run along the lines of being given full authority to someday see an offender at a cocktail party and get to whack them into blissful unconsciousness with the travesty of a book they've created. Or is that a bit much?

I once polled the child_lit listserv to see what celebrity book was the best of the lot. My favorite answer was the person who said that Fred Gwynne (the dad from the Munsters) did marvelous work. Yay, Gwynne! I'll make him my own personal favorite celebrity author.