With the belief that children's books should only have happy endings and urging parents to boycott books that differ from this, The Happy Endings Foundation (THEF) sparked a controversial debate in the publishing world this autumn. However, all was not as it appeared to be. It seems that THEF was a very clever marketing ploy by Egmont publishers of authors such as Malorie Blackman and Julia Donaldson.
To begin the campaign articles appeared in national daily newspapers announcing that THEF were planning a series of 'Bad Books' bonfires where parents were encouraged to burn novels with negative endings to coincide with Children's Book Week which began on 1st October. Critics of the group compared these bonfires to those that took place in Nazi Germany and reminded parents that children needed a healthy balance in reading materials. THEF also put together a list of books that have what they consider suitable endings for children including Winnie the Poo by A.A. Milne and The Famous Five Series by Enid Blyton.
The main book that seemed to come under criticism was Lemony Snicket's ' A Series of Unfortunate Events'. The supposed founder, Adrienne Small, claimed that she set THEF up in 2000 after her daughter read all thirteen books and she became depressed and her outlook on life became negative. Ms Small apparently left her position as a tax inspector to focus full time on THEF, which has eleven groups across the country including London, Manchester and Bristol and concentrate on re-writing all Lemony Snicket's books to give them happy endings.
The website gives THEF credibility with their calendar advertising their various protests, activities such as 'Spread a Smile sponsorship day' and a story-telling workshops and even a meeting at 10, Downing street. However, the details of these events are vague and undetailed which makes you question their validity.
Scrolling further down the page you come to the Disclaimer; clicking on that link reveals the following text:
Disclaimer: Most characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead, or half dead, is purely coincidental. None of the non-fictitious people, places or things named in this website were harmed during the creation of the site. We're not sure if the Loch Ness monster is fictitious or non-fictitious, you decide. We would like to state that some of the books recommended on this site are very good reads, particularly Winnie-the-Pooh. However, we would NOT recommend monster hunting at Loch Ness as a happy day out because a) it rains a lot in north Scotland and b) as previously stated, we don't know if there is actually a monster to hunt. However, if you like logs then Loch Ness is a fine place to go log hunting.
Inkygirl's blog reveals that actually the whole thing is an elaborate hoax concocted by Egmont publishers and the publicity firm Artscience. It seems that they had the whole of middle England duped and ready to start calls of the dangers of censorship yet THEF claims that it was just trying to generate discussion. What discussion they are trying to initiate is not clear - is it that of how books and literature can make a difference to children's lives or is it how a PR company can put a spin on anything?
Possibly the discussion should be how we all took a story on face value which seemed not only to raise eyebrows but also numerous questions and allow ourselves to fall into the web of spin from a slick publicity firm.
The Happy Endings Foundation received prominent column inches but it is yet undetermined if, by urging parents to buy books with only happy endings, that their aim to gain publicity for Lemony Snicket and other Egmont books has backfired and they have actually ended up turning people off buying any books as no one likes to be made a fool of no matter how effective the trick is!
[Photograph from THEF, Cartoon by Inkygirl]