`Horrid Henry,' beloved by British kids, horrifies U.S. parents

Listen to this article

Examples of some of the Horrid Henry books by Francesca Simon are seen in London, U.K. Francesca Simon’s 15 books about ‘Horrid Henry,’ an English brat who throws food, terrorizes teachers and tries to sell his little brother, are published in 25 countries and have sold 5.5 million copies in the U.K. alone.

Francesca Simon’s 15 books about “Horrid Henry,” an English brat who throws food, terrorizes teachers and tries to sell his little brother, are published in 25 countries and have sold 5.5 million copies in the U.K. alone.They’re not printed in the U.S., even though Simon herself is an American.“They thought he was just a bit too naughty, a bad example for the kids in the school,” says Simon, 51, sipping on a cappuccino in the newly renovated kitchen of her otherwise cluttered Victorian home in North London.In Britain, “Horrid Henry” has become something of an industry. There are “Horrid Henry” audio CDs and a “Horrid Henry” joke book. Come the new school year, there will also be a “Horrid Henry” cartoon show aired by ITV Plc, the U.K.’s largest commercial television broadcaster.Yet a unit of Scholastic Corp., the U.S. publisher of the “Harry Potter” books, backed out of a distribution agreement last year after American teachers complained, Simon says. Sara Sinek, a spokeswoman for Scholastic Book Clubs, which sells books through schools, says the company dropped the books because they didn’t meet sales forecasts.None of this surprises Heather Hendershot, a professor of media studies at City University of New York who has written two books about children’s television.Myths of innocence“Americans are terribly anxious about upholding their myths about childhood innocence,” says Hendershot. Japanese Pokemon cartoons are routinely censored to suit “overly cautious” U.S. parents, she says. The doctored versions have less violence, smoking and cursing. Female characters sometimes become less well endowed; bad characters become good.London-based Novel Entertainment, the independent company that’s producing the “Horrid Henry” cartoon, says it will try to sell the show in the U.S. Novel has already sold it to Germany’s ZDF network, says Managing Director Mike Watts.Heribert Beigel, ZDF’s editor for preschool programming, says he has no doubt that “Henry der Schreckliche” will be a hit, at least with boys. “He’s a funny anarchist, with great imagination and humorous inventions,” Beigel says.In Britain, the books are bestsellers in their age group, 5 to 8, according to the publisher, Orion Children’s Books, a unit of French media and defense company Lagardere SCA.World Cup, ChristmasThe latest book in the series, “Horrid Henry and the Football Fiend,” came out in May, in time for soccer’s World Cup. Last week it was the top-selling U.K. children’s book, or No. 30 among all books, according to the Sunday Times. Next up: “Horrid Henry’s Football Kit,” due in July, to be followed by “Horrid Henry and the Christmas Cracker” in October.In her home in North London, Simon says she gets more than 100 letters a week from young readers. In a closet, she keeps boxes full of “Horrid Henry” postcards which she autographs for children. There’s only one small drawing of Henry downstairs, on the fireplace mantle.Simon writes the stories on a computer in a cluttered attic office. Her Tibetan spaniel, Shanti, roams the house. She has one son, Joshua, who’s now 16.Born in St. Louis, Simon had lived in New York, London and Paris by the time she turned 8. Then, in 1963, her family settled in Southern California, where her father, a screenwriter, moved the family to places ranging from Malibu Colony to Pacific Palisades.Epic strugglesTo Simon, “Horrid Henry” is about sibling rivalry, the epic struggle over who gets to sit next to a window in the car.Or the desire to be good versus the desire to stomp on your brother’s sand castle. Simon says she hated having to share a room with her younger sister, Anne. As the eldest of four siblings, she tried to pretend she was an only child.Henry also reflects Simon’s education at Yale and Oxford, where she took degrees in medieval studies. “Horrid Henry” is full of archetypes and alliteration. Henry’s brother, Perfect Peter, has friends like Goody-Goody Gordon, Tidy Ted and Spotless Sam. Henry’s mates are Rude Ralph and Greedy Graham, and his nemesis is Moody Margaret.Henry hates nature walks and school lunches. He talks his brother into trouble. Even his teddy bear avoids him. Yet Henry is nowhere near as naughty as he appears to his target audience, Simon says. He doesn’t climb on the roof, play with matches or even plan to do evil. He’s just greedy, impulsive and selfish.“I always tell children, with Horrid Henry, you get all the thrill of behaving badly and none of the consequences,” Simon says in her mid-Atlantic accent.There will never be a sanitized version, or a “Slightly Horrid Henry,” even for the U.S. market, she says.“It would be awful, it would be morality tales,” Simon says. “It would be Goofus and Gallant.” David Altaner is a writer for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.