Alec Greven is the latest pint-sized author to hit the book circuit, with his book How to Talk to Girls, published by HarperCollins.
Forget girls – Alec, why dontcha tell us adults the secret to stumbling into a major book deal?
I’m joking, of course. After reading more about Greven on the Today show website, it sounds like he’s one of those kids whose fame is the consequence of lucky coincidence, not overbearing, starstruck parents.
The same childhood innocence that makes How to Talk to Girls such a charmer, though, is probably put most at risk by Greven’s success. He’s doing the TV show circuit. The Today show article observes Greven “sitting straight up on the sofa in Studio 1A and speaking like a practiced performer.” Elsewhere, on the NY Post online, readers sometimes snarkily debate the authenticity of the book and appropriateness of the topic, with comments like the two below:
macrobsd wrote:
Dont be nieve people. I wonder what genius of a parent thought of the idea, “hey I am going to write a book about how to pick up women and say a 9 year old kid wrote it so that it gets more publicity.” Think about it….
benz981 wrote:
I find the entire notion of a 9 year-old being encouraged to concern himself with adult-oriented behaviors like getting dates, dressing to get noticed by girls, etc. just another symptom of the blurring of the lines between age-appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Young children should not be acting like sexualized adults… and yet adults are viewing this as salacious fodder for their amusement. Disgusting.
Perhaps Greven is too busy to hear the criticism. After all, he’s churning out a whole series of How to Talk to… books, according to his author page on HarperCollins site.
There’s all sorts of criticism leveled at the trend toward young “pro” athletes: they are too immature to handle the high pressure and public scrutiny, as well as the sense that they bring down the overall quality of the sport.
Do you think these same criticisms apply when it comes to kids like Alec Greven and the arts?
