Bad Little Children’s Books

Further Statement by ABRAMS Regarding the Recently Published Adult Humor Book, Bad Little Children’s Books

New York, NY- December 4, 2016 – ABRAMS recently published the adult humor book Bad Little Children’s Books, a collection of intentionally offensive parodies of children’s book covers. In the last few days some commentators on social media and those who follow them have taken elements of the book out of context, failing to recognize it as an artistic work of social satire and comic parody. They argue that it lends credence to the hateful views that the author’s work is clearly meant to mock, demean, expose, and subvert.

Bad Little Children’s Books is a work of parody and satire and, as such, it is intentionally, openly, and provocatively offensive. We took great pains to clearly label the book as such through its repulsive cover, its judgmental title, its explanatory subtitle, and its introduction which states, “Ultimately, they [the fake books covers] divide us as a society, stimulate queasiness, stir up uncomfortable gasps of incredulity, and in the end cause the reader to ask, ‘WTF?’”

When first released in September 2016, Bad Little Children’s Books received glowing reviews. Readers and press who saw and reviewed the book understood its subversive, satirical intention. Huffington Post, Washington Post, Boing Boing, Bust, and Print magazine were among the positive press. We, and the book’s author, are deeply saddened that Bad Little Children’s Books is being depicted inaccurately on social media. We also hear the concerns.

At ABRAMS, our books and our publishing house have never nor will ever stand for bigotry or hatred. Those misrepresentations, aspersions, and claims surrounding the book, and the attempts to promulgate them, fly in the face of the values that our company and our employees hold dear.

We have a long record of publishing and promoting creative expression in many forms. We stand fully behind freedom of speech and artistic expression, and fully support the First Amendment. We have been disheartened by calls to censor the book and to stifle the author’s right to express his artistic vision by people we would expect to promote those basic fundamental rights and freedoms.

However, faced with the misperceived message of the book, we are respecting the author’s request. (See attached statement from the author.)

AUTHOR STATEMENT

When I used the pseudonym of the fictitious “Arthur C. Gackley” to write the adult satire book, Bad Little Children’s Books, published by ABRAMS, I did so by following a long tradition of parody. The book is a collection of more than 120 over-the-top parodies of seemingly innocent children’s book covers, each mashed up in a manner that makes them unabashedly un-PC, rude, tasteless, inappropriate—or all the above.

By channeling the Archie Bunker-esque character of Gackley (his bio says he vanished some thirty-eight years ago), I was clearly commenting on the ridiculousness of biases, stereotypes, and intolerance through the prism of questionable taste and dark humor. This is nothing new—MAD Magazine, Richard Pryor, The Onion, Amy Schumer, The Simpsons, Dave Chapelle, National Lampoon, and South Park are just a few of the parodists, satirists, and social commentators using humor as their weapon to skewer harmful attitudes and biases. While reviews of Bad Little Children’s Books have been overwhelmingly positive, I understand that one can become personally offended by any of the parodies (heck, even I find them offensive). The book is an “equal opportunity offender,” if you will. This was my intention and, as a longtime supporter of liberal politics throughout my more than forty-year career as an illustrator, writer, and humorist, the fictitious character of Gackley couldn’t be more different than me. The artistic statement that I tried to make in the book is to offend and, by doing so, to shine the uncomfortable light of day on bigotry, prejudice, and hate; in effect, to refuse to let those pernicious and undermining sentiments stand. That’s been part of my life’s work and what I hoped to achieve with this book.

Some people have asked ABRAMS to ban the book and issue an apology for publishing it in the first place. I suspect that they’ve neither seen nor read the satirical work in its entirety or, as likely, that the current political climate in the United States has made the kind of dialogue I had hoped to promote through the publication of Bad Little Children’s Books impossible. This act of censorship is dangerous on so many levels, as free speech, satire, and parody are tools to help make us a stronger society, not a more divided one.

The National Coalition Against Censorship summed it up best in their letter of support of the book, when they wrote, “We support ABRAMS’ decision to publish this, or any other book, even if it offends some readers. We urge the company not to accede to pressure to withdraw the book, but to stand for the proposition that it is the right of authors to write as they choose and of individuals to decide for themselves what to read. After all, anyone who doesn’t like the book doesn’t have to buy it.”

Satire can be ugly, but the dictionary defines it more specifically as “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.”

However, the book is clearly not being read by some in the way I had intended—as satire—and, more disturbingly, is being misread as the very act of hate and bigotry that the work was meant to expose, not promote.

For this reason, I have asked ABRAMS to cease publishing the book.

Abrams recently published an adult humor book called Bad Little Children’s Books, a collection of patently offensive parodies of children’s book covers. The book follows in the long tradition of parody that, with humor, attacks attitudes and built-in societal perceptions with equal ruthlessness. Its intention is to shine a spotlight on stereotypes about race, gender, and difference that have become commonplace in today’s world and to, in fact, skewer all levels of societal bias. This is exactly what successful parody and satire is meant to do.

It was never our intention as publisher, nor the author’s, to spread or support hateful messaging. Some reviewers and commenters on social media have taken elements of the book at face value, which, we believe, misses the point of the book as a work of artistic parody and satire. We stand by our publication and invite readers to make up their own minds.