How a Throwaway Line Turned Writers Against a Cheerleader for Children’s Books; The New York Times, May 22, 2026

Elisabeth Egan , The New York Times; How a Throwaway Line Turned Writers Against a Cheerleader for Children’s Books

"Barnett was thrilled when he got word in the summer of 2024 that Carla Hayden, then the librarian of Congress, had named him national ambassador for young people’s literature...

He is the ninth author in the role. The program is a partnership between the Library of Congress and the literary nonprofit Every Child a Reader; previous honorees include Jon Scieszka, Jacqueline Woodson, Jason Reynolds and Meg Medina...

“Make Believe” sparked a firestorm with a single line.

On Page 22 of the 102-page book, Barnett explains Sturgeon’s Law, in which the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon stated that “90 percent of everything is crud.”

Building on this idea, Barnett writes: “I have a nagging fear that children’s literature suffers from a slightly higher crud percentage than literature as a whole. So I now offer Barnett’s Addendum to Sturgeon’s Law: Maybe more like 94.7 percent of kids’ books are crud.”

Fellow children’s authors were aghast: How could their national ambassador say such a thing?...

Later I texted one final question: “Do you think you were wrong to say 94.7 percent of kids’ books are crud?”

Barnett responded, simply, “Yes, I should have used a different argument.”"

From Roald Dahl to Goosebumps, revisions to children’s classics are really about copyright – a legal expert explains; The Conversation, March 7, 2023

Cathay Smith, Professor of Law, University of Montana; Visiting Research Fellow, University of Oxford, The Conversation ; From Roald Dahl to Goosebumps, revisions to children’s classics are really about copyright – a legal expert explains

"The backlash to Puffin Books’ decision to update Roald Dahl’s children’s books has been swift and largely derisive. The publisher has been accused of “absurd censorship”, “corporate safetyism” and “cultural vandalism.” 

At its core, however, updating Roald Dahl’s children’s books is really about the rights and control copyright grants to authors and copyright holders. Those rights are exercised to update children’s books more frequently than many of these critics may realise."