Posts on please stop

What's with the proliferation of haiku picture books? And if we're going to have so dang many, can't we make them a little better? A little more, say, poetic?

Earlier today I read a review of an upcoming haiku picture book. The haiku quoted in the review was about as interesting, vivid, and emotional as this one I'm making up on the spot:

It's Sunday evening.
I made biscuits and gravy.
I'll go eat them now.

Except this author probably took more than ten seconds to write it. And got paid to do so.

Any idiot can write seventeen syllables and call it a haiku. But you better say something special in those seventeen syllables.

A haiku should have
more flavor than yesterday's
leftovers, you know?

As if that weren't enough, this week I've read another two reviews of "House That Jack Built" take-offs. Clearly, no one heard me the first time.

Can we stop writing/publishing picture book take-offs of "The House That Jack Built"? Now? Please? Two were reviewed in the August 15 Kirkus alone. I don't care if we're talking about pies, schools, penguins, deserts, or Thanksgiving feasts. The idea is not getting any fresher with age, folks.

ETA, 9/6/08: Peter at Collecting Children's Books has written a good long post about the history of "The House That Jack Built"—not to mention the sad and moralistic tale of a three-legged rat!