Fans of children’s literature are sharply divided over a new trend towards ‘Mashups’ of popular children’s books.
The fad started on Youtube, where songs are mixed or ‘mashed’ together to create something that sounds sort of cool, but a bit annoying to anyone under the age of 25. Media consultant Marvin Hipster from Shoreditch applied the same concept to classic children’s books, and the idea was an instant hit.
Currently trending on Twitter, the most popular ‘Book Mash’ is ‘Watership Pooh’, a cross between the pant-wettingly dark ‘Watership Down’ and ‘Winnie The Pooh’, the terminally inane tales of an unintelligent bear with an eating disorder.
With characters such as the Black Heffalump of Inle, and featuring Piglet as a gibbering psychic that has terrifying visions of death and destruction, critics say that they might not be suitable for small children. Its creator disagrees, claiming that gifted children are tired of conventional stories.
“I wanted to blend the darkness of the sort of rabbitty Lord Of The Rings, with the lightness and zen-like quality of a bumbling bear just farting around in the woods and eating misspelled bee products,” said Marvin. “My 4 year old son was like, just getting really bored of ordinary stories, so I decided to create one for him. The idea just took off. I’m opening a café called ‘Eat Drink Mash’ in Spitalfields later this year, where people can order books off a menu and have them mashed at the counter,”
Not everyone is a fan of the trend. Jeremy Beard, author of many classic children’s books ranted from his nursing home:
“He’s a twat! You can’t just plonk Winnie The sodding Pooh in the middle of Watership Down. What the hell is that going to even sound like? ‘My heart stopped running today, for my friend got his fat arse stuck in a tree’?”
While Dorothy Mole, head of the Society for Children’s Literature shook her head and just mumbled “Oh for fuck’s sake,”
The Beezly Street Gazette 