Latawnya Cover

Okay, so I’m at an author luncheon yesterday being hosted by the good folks at Houghton Mifflin.

Sitting around the table is a nice little grouping of who’s who in the Boston kid-books scene, including Roger Sutton of the Horn Book, Carol Stoltz from Porter Square Books, the wonderful Anita Silvey, poetess extraordinare Joyce Sidman, (if you have seen her latest book of apology poems, check it out), and the hard-working Alison Morris from Wellesley Booksmith and PW blogger fame.

Apropos of my essay below, the conversation turned to self-published children’s books and customer reviews on websites, and Alison brought the above to my attention. Props to her, because I think this is just about the funniest thing I have ever seen on Amazon.

Self-published authors, take note.

Published in 1990 via Vantage Press, a notorious vanity publisher, LATAWNYA, the Naughty Horse, Learns to Say “NO” to Drugs is the story of a—well—a naughty horse named Latawnya. And her sisters Latoya and Daisy. And how they run into four other horses Connie, Crystal, Jackie and Angie who are all playing a “smoking game and a drinking game”. But wait, why paraphrase when you can read the whole book for yourself. Go ahead.

Here’s my favorite part:

Latawnya 11B

Latawyna 13

Now putting aside the amazing writing for a minute, let’s just meditate on the image of one horse slapping the alcohol and drugs out of another horse’s HOOF. I swear I laughed so hard I cried.

And if the book itself makes you laugh, be sure to read the reviews on Amazon. Like this one:

Thank you Latawna!
I used to be an alcoholic, drug-addicted AND naughty horse.
But thanks to this inspired work ( thank you God ),
I am not a horse anymore.

So, who is this author? Perhaps she herself has had a bad brush with “smoking drugs”.

 

Bio
Lest you think I am making fun of the message here, I am not. It’s a very important message.

I have also occasionally thanked God, but not twice in the same bio.

This is the perfect example of how a great message can be completely overshadowed by a bad delivery. It’s like proposing marriage in a clown suit. In this particular case, we have a work that is so bad it’s genius, and like Snakes on a Plane, it’s poised for cult fame.

Maybe Sylvia should put it back in print, because she might make some money on it finally.

Listen up, people. It’s not the drug smoking horses you have to be afraid of, it’s having a story like this make you the butt of jokes on Amazon for years.

Save yourselves. Just say no.

***

Many thanks to Walker B over at The Something Awful Forums for first making this available to the wider public after he found it in the elementary school library where he works. This deserves to see the light of day, if only to serve as a warning to others.

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