What was your favourite bedtime story? Did it involve pirates?

The main problem with children's books is that they are written by adults.

What book is being described in the following snark?

1. Cliché pirates bury stolen treasure, uttering their trademark 'aargh'. (They do this so much, the parrot picks up the habit.) A British magistrate and a doctor take an underage child with them on a sailing ship, and his mother doesn't object. They steal the pirate treasure and maroon several sailors, but this is all right because the looters are respectable people.
   Treasure Island. Suggested rewrite: have these people arrested and imprisoned on the Dry Tortugas. Make their government engage in long diplomatic talks before releasing them.
2. A young elephant grows up in a city and wears clothes. His education in civilisation suits him to become the new king of the elephants. This story is the fault of the French.
   L'Histoire de Babar, le petit eléphant. Suggested rewrite: Make this into a film by Luc Besson.
3. This British horror tale involves vegetable gardens, and a father who ended up in a stew. (Meat is murder, people.) Clothing items are stolen and used on a scarecrow, while the victim is fobbed off with chamomile tea. Why hasn't John Carpenter filmed this mess?
   The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Suggested rewrite: Arm the rabbits.
4. E. Nesbit penned this edifying children's story in which a father is wrongfully imprisoned by the Russians. The kids become trainspotters. Go figure.
   The Railway Children. Suggested rewrite: Reset the story in Glasgow.
5. Alien abducts human children and tries to convince them of the joys of arrested development. Various stereotypical tropes are enlisted, including Red Indians, mermaids, and the ubiquitous pirates. (Aargh.)
   Peter Pan. Suggested rewrite: Peter Gets His Own Airline.
6. A terribly British bear lives in a terribly British forest and speaks terribly British babytalk while doing nothing in particular. Call it Seinfeld with tea breaks.
   Winnie the Pooh. Suggested rewrite: A crossover episode with the Star Trek franchise in which Winnie and Eeyore drive several alien species completely mad.
7. Another horror story. This one involves a ravenous beast that devours everything in its path. It gets a well-deserved stomachache. Then it turns into something pretty, so it's all right.
   The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Suggested rewrite: We recommend giving this one to Clive Barker.
8. Kid paves the road to food-production business success by resisting the temptation to eat up the profits. Stereotypical bad kids drown in chocolate, get sucked up into the factory machinery, or turn into grotesque blueberries. There's a moral in there somewhere: we defy you to find it.
   Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Suggested rewrite: No more, please. We fear seeing Johnny Depp again.
9. A manual for pet owners: this story demonstrates the dangers of letting a feline babysit human children – unless, of course, said feline comes with its own house-cleaning equipment.
   The Cat in the Hat. Suggested rewrite: A prose edition. Kids will stay away in droves.
10. Speaking of bad influences: a girl follows a rabbit down a hole, and is subjected to drug culture, bad language, Dali-like surrealism, and bilingual puns.
    Alice in Wonderland. Suggested rewrite: Something by Hunter Thompson tentatively called Fear and Loathing in the Underground.

Want to write a children's book? Apparently, almost no talent is required. Just remember to encourage anarchy and make up a few ridiculous names. Warning: future generations will publish exposés about your bad behaviour, but by then, you'll have sold so many books nobody will care. Otherwise respectable people will defend their favourite children's authors, even if they turned out to be terrorists or Scientologists.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

23.10.17 Front Page

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