Children's Books To Really Avoid

Want to talk about books that really shouldn't be allowed in your school's library?

AI "publishing" is just as busy a business as the various versions of AI homework-- well, the generative language algorithm has spurred the proliferation of euphemisms for "cheating." I have lost track of how many ads I have seen for an AI product that can "help" me "create" my book. Reuters wrote a whole story about how some salesman became a children's book author with the "help" of ChatGPT  

Using the AI software, which can generate blocks of text from simple prompts, Schickler created a 30-page illustrated children’s e-book in a matter of hours, offering it for sale in January through Amazon.com Inc's (AMZN.O) self-publishing unit.

In the edition, Sammy the Squirrel, crudely rendered also using AI, learns from his forest friends about saving money after happening upon a gold coin. He crafts an acorn-shaped piggy bank, invests in an acorn trading business and hopes to one day buy an acorn grinding stone.

Sammy becomes the wealthiest squirrel in the forest, the envy of his friends and "the forest started prospering," according to the book.

(Do take a moment to read the whole story, which is both hilarious and terrifying).

Recognize that when the story says Schickler "created," it means he gave ChatGPT a prompt. And yet he says, "I could see people making a whole career out of this." But a human "author" is really just another customer for the AI grift, and is not really necessary at all. 

Meet Bold Kids publishing.

I can't tell you much about them, because they don't appear to have a website. Nor do any of their books have an author. Their blurb on their Amazon page says this:

At Bold Kids, we take stride in ensuring that children can learn and find our books useful. Our books are specially made for young readers who actively want to learn more about interesting and quite intriguing children's book topics. With a special care dedicated to specific grades, curriculums, and subjects, we can ensure that children can learn something new inside our books.

If that sounds as if it comes from that special place in the uncanny valley between "English is not my first language" and "I am not actually a human being," well, let's take a look inside the books. 

Sondra Eklund is a librarian in charge of selecting children's and young adult books for a large public library system. She ordered Rabbits: Children’s Animal Fact Book and on her blog (a great resource for book reviews) wrote about what she found inside. First she was struck by poor wording and organization; then she got to some Very Special pages:

A rabbit has a male and female counterpart. A male rabbit is called a buck. The two types of rabbits have different characteristics. A doe is a baby rabbit, while a buck is a mother. All types of rabbits live underground, except for the cottontail, and their habitats are often called warrens.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of feeding a rabbit, you’ve probably wondered how they reproduce. The answer is simple: they live in the wild! Despite being cute and cutesy, rabbits are also very smart.

They can even make their own clothes, and they can even walk around. And they’re not only adorable, but they’re also very useful to us as pets and can help you out with gardening.

Amazon carries the books (though none that I found with a "look inside" feature. Eklund notes that they are carried by some major vendors and distributors like Ingram, but are "non-returnable" which generally means they are Print On Demand--the book isn't printed until someone orders it. POD is not automatically bad (I've self-published a few books that way), but it is certainly the model preferred by many AI "publishers." Give a prompt, generate a manuscript that then lives on a hard drive until you can convince someone to buy it. 

Bold Kids appears to have almost a thousand books in print. Earliest I could find was published back in September of 2018. Best title: Sheeps: Children's Book Filled With Facts, which on Goodreads (yes, there are 940 Bold Kids books listed on Goodreads) comes with the totally child-friendly blurb: "Sheeps are a domesticated ruminant mammal, and they are part of the Artiodactyla order, a group of even-toed ungulates. They have a long, lanky body, and are generally docile and peaceful."

Or perhaps you'd like Mountain Lions: Discover Pictures and Facts About Mountain Lions For Kids! A Children's Jungle Animals Book because who isn't interested in the animals of the North American jungles?

Or their "children's physics" book Light Energy, with this blurb on OverDrive

Did you know that light is an amazing form of energy? The speed of light is so fast that nothing can slow it down, including the human body! The study of light is called photonics. It teaches kids about the nature of light and how we can make it useful in our daily lives. However, you should remember that it has no mass. There is no way that we can live without it. In fact, we can't even see the Sun without seeing the moon.

World War 2 For Kids!

World War II is one of the biggest wars the world has ever seen. It’s a war everyone should know about, and your child can learn some cool, and not so cool facts about this war. Get a copy of this today so you can teach your child about this war, and the aspects of this.

Capitalism: Discover Pictures and Facts About Capitalism For Kids!

Many children hear about capitalism in schools, but do they know what it really means? Well, they can learn about this type of government, and what it means for them in this. They will learn about the ins and outs of this type of government, and why some criticize this structure for what it entails.

I could go on all day, but you get the idea. They also offer at least a couple of titles in Spanish and German. 

Here at the institute, we're well aware that terrible children's books that appear to have been cobbled together with clip art and terrible writing are not a new thing (or even just mediocre frankenbooks--looking at you, DK), but generative language algorithms (which possess no intelligence, artificial or otherwise) have unleashed a whole new level of terrible. Combine that with what Cory Doctorow has called the enshittification of Amazon, resulting in an "endless scroll of paid results, where winning depends on ad budgets, not quality" and you get just a whole new level of bad.

Eklund points out many of the warning signs with Bold Kids. No authors. No professional reviews. POD or other signs of self-publishing (which is another crappy side effect of the AI explosion; I keep hearing that publishers are being inundated with algorithm-produced manuscripts, making it harder than ever for new human authors to break through). 

The whole business is a reminder that what generative language algorithms can do is crank out tons of crap very quickly. It's flooding the internet, and it's trying to flood the world of print as well. Here's hoping that librarians don't get too busy trying to clamp down on mentions of race and LGBTQ persons so that they can keep libraries free of just plain old junk.