Celebrity picture books have proliferated in pandemic and post-pandemic years, with many slim, moralistic volumes by famous figures. These books often emphasize celebrity names over robust storytelling, offering simplistic lessons and predictable arcs. Familiar personalities such as Serena Williams, Hoda Kotb, and Bette Midler have entered the children's market, joined by actors and journalists releasing picture narratives. Some celebrity books repackage parental experience as qualification for authorship, producing work that feels more like branding than craft. The result is a crowded market of sentimental, didactic titles that may prioritize marketing appeal over nuanced, imaginative reading experiences for children.
There are no guilty pleasures in childhood. It is only as an adult that I feel a certain sheepishness when recalling one of my favorite picture books, "Ann Likes Red," by Dorothy Z. Seymour, which was originally published in 1965. Wedged between the vaunted volumes of Gorey and Scarry, "Ann Likes Red" stuck out both literally, for its squat stature, and literarily, for its hazy lesson in self-assertion.
Ann visits a department store with her mother, where saleswomen attempt to sell her on a variety of dresses and belts. Our heroine rejects every color but her favorite. When a shoe salesman, who has not been privy to the preceding pages, attempts to fit Ann's foot with a tan sandal, he's lucky he doesn't get a kick in the jaw. In the end, Ann tries on her monochromatic outfit before a mirror, looking pleased as punch.
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