Nine-Year-Old Alec Greven Gets HarperCollins Deal For Book On Love Advice; We’re Old And Live With Our Mother

Alec Greven, a horrible 9-year-old that adults feel comfortable chatting up without feeling like pedophiles, has a book out called How to Talk to Girls. It’s a 46-page book that originally started out as a handwritten pamphlet, which he sold for $3 to his underage, non-sexually developed classmates. We have a similar background. When we were 9 we used to make a pamphlet called “Kitty Kat Prom” that we sold for 75-cents to neighbors. It included short fiction, original crossword puzzles, and crayon illustrations. True story.

Alec, who is described by the New York Post as knowing “plenty about pleasing the ladies”, gives advice like “comb your hair and don’t wear sweats”. He also advises young prey to avoid “pretty girls”, who he defines as wearing “big earrings, fancy dresses and all the jewelry”, and go after “regular” girls instead. Basically he’s saying, go for the ugly ones because they have lower self-esteem and are more willing to let you get to first base. Who didn’t already know that?

Considering we gossiped about what “sex” was at about that age, we’re not going to judge the kid’s intentions. Fine, he’s writing a book intending to appeal to other 9-year-olds who gossip in bathrooms about what a “lesbian” is. The strange and disturbing thing about this is his book deal. Our country is in a recession and HarperCollins invests in a 9-year-old esquintle’s love guide? This kid has also just finished a kid’s book about the Watergate scandal. What does he possibly know about Watergate? If we were 9, we might be interested, but as a relatively old person, we’re insulted that this kid can get a book deal sooner than we can. Our book about college misadventures has mass appeal too, HarperCollins! Also, having a 50-year-old man read our book wouldn’t send chills down the spine of parents the way having a 50-year-old man walk into a Barnes and Noble and purchase a love guide by a 9-year-old would.

While we have not read the book, we definitely don’t ever want to read the book. If we want to learn how to pick up a 9-year-old girl, we’ll just watch an episode of To Catch a Predator.

I Wrote the Book of Love [New York Post]