Celebrity Authors
There’s a great scene in the movie, ‘Goodfellas’, where the gangster played by Joe Pesci confronts Ray Liotta’s character. “Am I funny?” he says to a packed bar. “Do I amuse you? Am I a clown? Do I make you laugh?”. I was reminded of this scene when considering the recent furor over famous celebrities publishing children’s books. Madonna, Keira Knightley, and David Walliams are three of the most high-profile celebs-come-authors. But there are others, such as Tom Fletcher from McFly (wasn’t their music bad enough?), Lil Nas, Seth Meyers, and Reese Witherspoon. Given the lucrative nature of the market it’s likely that this list will continue to grow, piling further pressure on those authors unlucky enough not to have had a career in showbiz before they picked up their pen and started to write. Of course, any intervention that boosts children’s literacy is to be welcomed. In this regard, it doesn’t matter who the author is. And if children discover a love of reading via
