SOURCE: Cooper, Ilene. Review of Pamela's First Musical, by Wendy Wasserstein. Booklist 92, nos. 19-20 (1 June 1996): 1732.

In the following review, Cooper evaluates Pamela's First Musical, observing that children's-book publishers often sacrifice literary quality for corporate profits.

Anyone can write a children's book. At least, that's what lots of people think, particularly celebrities and, worse, authors who have made their names by writing adult books. Do they believe writing kids’ books is an easy way to make money? Or that kids’ books are just so gosh darn easy to write?

They're wrong, of course, and most of them prove it by what they produce stories that are insipid, directed at the wrong audience, or lazily written; sometimes all of the above. Occasionally, adult writers prove they can make it in the children's field (Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich come to mind), but it doesn't happen very often. Among the many...