[In the following review, Cooper evaluates Pamela's First Musical, observing that children's-book publishers often sacrifice literary quality for corporate profits.]

Anyone can write a children's book. At least, that's what lots of people think, particularly celebrities and, worse, authors who have made their names by writing adult books. Do they believe writing kids’ books is an easy way to make money? Or that kids’ books are just so gosh darn easy to write?

They're wrong, of course, and most of them prove it by what they produce stories that are insipid, directed at the wrong audience, or lazily written; sometimes all of the above. Occasionally, adult writers prove they can make it in the children's field (Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich come to mind), but it doesn't happen very often. Among the many luminaries who have written undistinguished children's books are Ken Follett, Chaim Potok, Fran Lebowitz, the Duchess of York, and, most recently, Jimmy Carter, who used as inspiration a bedtime story he made up for his children. Daughter Amy did the illustrations, bringing this phenomenon into the second generation.

This spring's publishing season has offered particularly fertile ground for books by celebrity authors. Garrison Keillor, Marianne Williamson, and Wendy Wasserstein have all authored new children's books. None of them is particularly successful.

Garrison Keillor, that homespun Lake Woebegon guy, thought it would be funny to write a poem about The Old Man Who Loved Cheese. It does get off to a bouncy start “There was an old man named Wallace P. Flynn / Who lived in a house in the trees— / You could smell him for several miles downwind / because of his fondness for cheese.” So far, so good. Thirty-two long pages later, this stinky cheese man has been deserted by his family, boycotted by his neighbors, assaulted by the police, and carted off to a jail, all the while encumbered by rhymes like, “The smell became so fetid and rank / The mailman brought an oxygen tank.” This is one joke writ large, and although kids like repetition, not even five-year-olds are going to want to hear this much about cheese. At least illustrator Wilsdorf has the artwork right. The cartoon-style pictures are a whirl of activity that capture the humor of the initial premise.

Marianne Williamson's book couldn't be more different Williamson is a lecturer and interpreter of the Christian/New Age philosophy found in a tome called A Course in Miracles. In her best-selling book. A Return to Love (1991), she is focused, bitingly funny, and a keen observer of the human condition. So why, when she writes a book for children does she think the proper tone is sentimental and syrupy sweet? The “story” itself is virtually formless. Emma and her mother talk about God. God is love; God is inside you. An angel visits Emma, and when a boy at school is mean to her, she asks the angel to make him nice; the next day, he is. The book is not helped much by undistinguished artwork executed in sherbert shades, highlighted with a golden glow. Conversing with children about God is a wonderful idea, but children respond to reality more than to aphorisms. The usually insightful Williamson is talking down to her audience because she doesn't know how to write for it.

But perhaps the author with the most hubris this spring season is playwright Wendy Wasserstein. Clearly, Wasserstein only thinks she wants to write for children; in both style and content, she is appealing to adults. The premise [of Pamela's First Musical]: Pamela will be spending her tenth birthday with her fashion-designer aunt, attending her first Broadway musical. But before the curtain goes up, there will be lunch at the Russian Tea Room, where Aunt Pamela knows everyone who is anyone. What follows is a long, drawn-out re-creation of a musical that has elements of Carousel, A Chorus Line, and Miss Saigon. Afterward, Pamela and Aunt Louise go backstage, where she knows everyone. Let's set aside the question of how many children will relate to the idea of going to a Broadway musical. After all, books do take us outside our own experience (though if this were a real play, a theatergoer might be tempted to leave at intermission). Unlike Williamson, who talks down, Wasserstein talks over the heads of her listeners, winking continuously at the adults who are reading the story. During the intermission, one theatergoer cattily notes that the leading lady, Mary Ethel Bernadette (get it?), “is no ingenue.” A theater marquee proclaims “Kathleen Battle-weary in Woman in Denial”; and then there's a page full of praise to theatrical designers (Andrew Jackness, who illustrated the book in a swirling, effervescent fashion, is a theatrical designer).

Perhaps the most offensive part of the book isn't between the covers. The back of the jacket offers blurbs from Angela Lansbury, Glenn Close, and Carol Channing, among others. Universally, these experts on children's literature adored the book. Well, maybe Kevin Kline didn't. His comment, “I read it from cover to cover,” might be referring only to the book's 32-page length. Let's not kid ourselves. Library patrons are not really the intended audience for this book. It's aimed at bookstores, and therein lies the raison d'etre of these books: to be purchased by adults—adults who don't know much about kids’ books but who will recognize the name Jimmy Carter when they see it.

The problem is, in these days of limited corporate resources, there is only so much money, and so much publicity, to go around. If Wasserstein is getting a huge advance, or Keillor grabs the lion's share of the publicity budget, there will be less, much less, for the talented writers and illustrators of books that children would actually like to read. This phenomenon is not unique to the world of children's books, of course. That's why loan Collins is a novelist, and Howard Stern one of the top 10 nonfiction writers in America. Adults, however, can choose what they wish to purchase and read. Youngsters, especially preschoolers, usually have that selection made for them.

In this profit-mad world, the children's-book industry is under the same pressure as every other business to deliver big sales. Left to their own devices, many children's publishers and editors might take a pass on the Wassersteins and the Williamsons. Certainly, children's-book professionals recognize what celebrity “authors” almost never do: the richness and sophistication of children's books written by people who know their craft. But children's-book publishers have a big problem a corporate structure hollering, “Gimme.”

What can librarians do? Well, we may not be bookstores, but we do buy plenty of books. If a book by a celebrity or adult author works, fine. But just because publishing houses want to dazzle us with big-name authors doesn't mean we can't look these books over carefully, wearing sunglasses. Make no mistake, this isn't another version of the old quality-versus-popularity debate, which is a kids’ issue and as old as Nancy Drew. This is a quality-versus-name-recognition issue, and the stakes are sales, not what kids want to read. There's nothing we can do about the display of a celebrity's latest children's book beckoning from the bookstore aisles, but we don't have to put that book in the stacks. If no one else is going to say it, librarians should: investing in children's books by big names may be better for bottom lines, but it's certainly a poor investment in the literary lives of the nation's children.