Like every other British celebrity, Jamie Oliver has been busy writing children’s books. His first, Billy and the Giant Adventure, came out last year. It follows a child called Billy and a bunch of his friends who find a secret wood full of fairies and strange creatures that need their help – that kind of thing. The second, Billy and the Epic Escape, came out in May. You can’t buy it any more, though. Last week the publisher, Penguin, recalled all copies from sale worldwide, due to its portrayal of First Nation Australians.
Oliver, a man with few connections to Australia, had no particular reason to set himself up for this failure. And for Penguin to pulp every copy of the book, in all countries, it seems like he has failed on a grand scale. The book has been condemned by groups such as the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Corporation for “trivialising” the “complex and painful histories” of real children who were forcibly removed from First Nation families, for implying that such families are neglectful of their children and money-grubbing, and for perpetuating stereotypes of First Nations people as possessing mystical abilities, such as mind-reading. Oliver and Penguin apologised for what the publisher described as “publishing standards” that “fell short”.
What? How did a TV chef from Essex manage to step on this particular rake? What’s Jamie Oliver written a book about First Nation Australians for? What on Earth has he written to prompt a publisher to wipe it from sale? And is Jamie Oliver any good at writing children’s books, aside from its, er, apparent accidental racism?
Getting my hands on Billy and the Epic Escape wasn’t easy. Book pulping moves fast. Canny hawkers have listed signed “first edition” (last edition?) copies for sale for upwards of £100 online. I also, curiously, found I could read it online in German, a language I don’t speak.
Eventually I found a hard copy, for the somewhat unreasonable sum of £45, on eBay. The plot of Billy and the Epic Escape is that four children – Billy, Jimmy, Anna and Andy – are able to travel to a secret woodland world where there are gardens tended by giants called Growers. The Growers turn out to be children from all over the world, who were kidnapped to tend gardens that supply food to a dystopian city which we don’t learn much about. An evil ginger woman with magical powers called “Scary Red” oversees them, in exchange for a potion that keeps her looking young forever which she takes every 24 hours. There is also a source of infinite energy in this world that she wants to get her hands on, and the children have to stop her.
As this summary might suggest, the book is not very good. Young minds haven’t lost out by this book not making it into their hands. There’s too much going on, the characters all speak in the same way, the world-building is patchy and unsatisfying, and the dialogue deals mostly in thudding exposition and moral lessons delivered with all the subtlety of a punch in the mouth. The children are always coming out with phrases you might find on inspirational Instagram posts, such as “I know that pain can be the greatest teacher” and “looking after each other is what friends do”. Many, many children’s books are better written and more nuanced.
But the thing that is especially bonkers about this whole debacle is that First Nation Australians are not remotely integral to the book’s plot. Halfway through, the villain realises she needs to kidnap a new child to become a Grower, and decides to visit the “Borolama community” in Alice Springs, or Mparntwe, in Australia. “First Nations children seem to be more connected with nature – so their gardens produce not just quantity, but quality,” she says to herself. When she gets there, she poses as a charity worker giving funds to community growing projects and, by dangling the promise of such funds, convinces a First Nations woman to leave her alone with a child called Ruby, who she then drugs and kidnaps. Ruby, it turns out, has an inherent understanding of the magical world she finds herself in, and a connection to nature’s power, which in the book is called “the Rhythm”. “‘Ever since I was a little girl, I was always able to feel what people were thinking,’ she explains, ‘And I can feel it even more with plants and animals. My mum always told me that’s the indigenous way.’” During her brief time in the book, Ruby is presented as an eerily mature, flatly angelic font of ancient wisdom due to her indigenous background. “‘Look after the Rhythm, and the Rhythm will look after you,’ said Ruby.”
It clangs. Oliver does not have the writing ability to pull off a nuanced portrayal of (I fear) anybody at a register appropriate for children. Why would he? He is a chef.
That said, and far be it from me to pity a man much richer and more successful than I will ever be, reading the book made me feel just a little sorry for him. There are flashes of the thing Jamie Oliver really knows and cares about amid all the inept fantasy world-building: food. One of the giants cooks a “grisotto”: “I cut a pumpkin in half and put it on the fire so the outside burns, but the inside goes sweet and soft. Then I stir that through grains from the edge of the garden. Oh, I think I might even still have a bit of salted cheese in the shed.” At one point, one of the kids pushes a “handful of squished Garibaldis under the tiny space beneath the door” to feed someone stuck inside a room. Andy shows another child how keeping a toastie between his bum cheeks provides just enough body heat to melt the cheese. And at the back, there are recipes linked to the book like “Bilfred’s garden soup” and “Andy’s special cheese toastie” (minus the bum cheeks).
All this is endearing, and reads like it was written by someone who understands what they’re writing about. Books are best when they’re written by someone with specific passion and talent. Children’s writing should be a profession in its own right, not something that rich and famous people do in their spare time. Instead, we have supermarket rows of mediocre books authored by stars that stores feel confident will sell on the basis of parental name recognition, rather than because children might actually find them compelling. The whole circus degrades the quality of the literature that is most readily available to kids.
Oliver said he was “devastated” to have caused hurt, and that it was “never [his] intention to misinterpret this deeply painful issue”. I’m sure it wasn’t. But this was a can of worms he didn’t need to open, and shouldn’t have. One small mercy, though. Perhaps this will be a lesson to the small number of remaining celebrities who have not authored a children’s book. Stick to what you’re good at.
[See also: The dismal world of David Walliams]
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