People or Animals?
Feb 9th, 2009 by MPC Press
A simple piece of advice that we offer children’s book writers and illustrators—animals, not humans. Maybe this isn’t clear? Children’s picture books that depict animals rather than humans have the potential to attract a wider audience. Why? No one has painted a perfect multi-ethnic human; it may be close to impossible. Unfortunately this is the challenge of reading a book about a human family to a group of three children with one being of Asian heritage, another Black and the third Caucasian. It is difficult for all three of these children to assimilate with the characters. Yes, the book can be about a family of three children who look completely different from one another, perhaps due to adoption or different fathers. But, even in today’s more open minded world, this would lead to confusion. Questions would be asked and the reader’s/listener’s mind would wander from the true subject of the story. So, a story about animals is plainly better from a marketing point of view.
So why did we publish Lawrence the Laughing Cookie Jar? The family is clearly White, and nothing else. The answer to this is actually simple; sometimes the quality of a book is at such a level that we can overcome certain issues. When the author submitted Lawrence the Laughing Cookie Jar to MPC, we realized we had a winner, despite the purely White family. Yes, our potential audience was trimmed, but initial test marketing indicated likely success. In fact, our Media Acceptance Determination of Family Features (MADOFF) calculation came in at 91 out of 100, the highest level calculated in the history of MPC Press. We are told that Curious George (which features the racially evident Man with the Yellow Hat) posted a MADOFF calculation of 89. You may be asking what the MADOFF calculation really measures. It is too confusing to describe in detail but try to picture a survey of parents and children that asks unbiased questions such as, “If I gave you 20 bucks, would you enjoy this book more?”
While the success of Lawrence the Laughing Cookie Jar is without debate, we were pleased when the same author presented us with the manuscript, Rhyme, a story about pigs. Our test marketing has revealed greater global acceptance (despite some selected human illustrations, multi-racial of course, beginning on page 19), and we hope to consider offers by translators (into potentially 30 languages including Pig Latin), due to international demand. Stay tuned.
NEVER again take my family’s name in vain. Had my husband been more intelligent, he would have purchased a controlling interest in MPC Press.