The FKS Gay Children’s Book Review – "Hey, Diddle, Diddle!"

Before Mrs. Drew had the Girl, we spent one Saturday night hanging around at Barnes & Noble looking at children’s books. I have many tests to determine whether or not my life is truly over, and this is one of them. It was 10PM on a Saturday night, and we were in a bookstore. What. The. Fuck.

Before the Girl, I only knew the B&N children’s book area as the section that had the cleanest shitter, which I would then promptly go ruin with a 500 lb. neutron bomb. But now here I was, actually looking at children’s books. Quite a leap forward. You’d think that children’s books were all the same. Some barnyard animals. Some gay little drawings. And a solid lesson about counting, or spelling, or how much your uncle in prison loves you. But no, you’d be shocked at the disparity in children’s books. Some are great. Some make you want to sit on a corncob. It’s a wide gulf, to say the least.

I also love the fact that half the books in the section were written by celebrities. You can just picture Madonna or some other jackass calling their agent and saying, “Hey, I’d love to write a book! But not one of those adult books, with lots of words and thoughts! I think I’m really good at writing children’s books, yeah! They’ve got lots of pictures I don’t have to draw! And really big font sizes! And only six sentences! And I don’t have to use my brain so much! Because using my brain makes my tits hurt!” Actually, that quote right there would make a terrific children’s book. Someone call Random House.

Anyway, I’m here to steer you through the maze of children’s literature. Any asswipe online can review movies and CD’s and books. But only I am Badass enough to venture into kiddie book land. This won’t be like one of those dipshit New York Times reviews, where you read 500 words and still can’t figure out whether or not the critic liked it. I hate that shit. Rather, I’ll be using my patented Gay Kid’s Book Rating System:

4 Poopy Diapers – Classic
3 Poopy Diapers – Decent
2 Poopy Diapers – Whatever
1 Poopy Diaper – Coaster

Today’s book: “Hey, Diddle, Diddle!” by Salley Mavor.


I picked up this book, looked at the title, and immediately figured it was a manual for helping teenage girls learn to masturbate. No such luck. No, this is the classic nursery rhyme (which Mavor, if that is her real name, didn’t even write) complete with creepy illustrations made from like, felt and shit. Here’s the book:

Hey, diddle, diddle!
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon
The little dog laughed
To see such sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon

That’s the book. All of it. Yet they manage to stretch that shit over 14 pages, including one audacious page that only says, “Hey.” Try this technique on your Victorian Lit term paper and you will fucking fail, my friend. But in the children’s book industry, that earns you the tag of “beloved children’s author”. No wonder celebrities think it’s so easy.

I have many issues with the rhyme itself. What’s the first thing we see here? That’s right. Another goddamn, rabbit-murdering cat. And what’s the cat playing? That inbred mountain cousin of the violin: the fiddle. I also have a real problem with plate/utensil cohabitation. If we let dishes and spoons run off together, what’s to stop the salt and pepper shakers from divorcing and shacking up with the cheese grater? Or the fucking whisk? That is moral decay in the kitchen, and it disgusts me.

Oh, and the illustrations are like looking at a quilt your great aunt gave you for Christmas that you know was just lying around in her attic for sixty years. So, Salley Mavor, I regret to inform you that your book only gets One Poopy Diaper.


Hope you like looking at the bottom of a rum and Coke, Mr. Cow.