Oh, Hello. The Rise of Children's Author Mo Willems

The great Mo Willems is discussed in the Washington Post.

From the piece...

Mo Willems is doo-doo funny for kids, but he’s witheringly funny, almost sad-funny, for their parents. His books are the barometers of taste for the toddler set. His works, say the people who deeply believe in him, mean something — something both very basic and very complex that has been distilled into cartoons and monosyllabic words.

“He really,” says Edith Ching, a children’s literature instructor and friend of Willems, “he really understands the human condition.”

“The thing about writing for kids is that there are no cultural modifiers. You can’t say that something ‘is so Walter Mondale.’ ” You can’t reference the Kardashians. The Kardashians are meaningless to kids. “So all you have to work with is love, anger, jealousy — it’s a very small palette, but the existential crises are ultimately the same.”