A wave of excitement is ruffling the publishing industry with the Sept. 15 release of the children's book "The One, The Only Magnificent Me" by author Dan Haseltine.
Haseltine is the lead singer for the Grammy-winning, contemporary Christian band Jars of Clay.
Haseltine is also the lyricist for the band's music, which generally appeals to the teen-to-30-something crowd, but his first book reaches out to a different audience -- 4-to-9-year-olds.
Haseltine's songwriting skill comes across in the book's poetry with its rhyming, Dr. Seuss-style meter that follows a young boy's discontent with being "normal." He wishes he could grow horns and wings and morph into wonderful things. With his mother's help he realizes he was created to be his own, one-of-a-kind self and finds comfort in the fact that he's magnificent just the way he is.
Haseltine teamed with his friend, Holland, Mich., artist and children's television personality Joel Schoon Tanis, whose boyish imagination runs wild with colorful sketches that support Haseltine's story line. And there's even a northern Michigan link. Mackinac Island Press in Traverse City publishes the book.
The book already has the attention of wholesale distributors. Elizabeth Fielding, a media spokesperson for Ingram Book Group, one of the nation's largest booksellers and its Christian affiliate Spring Arbor, says that, based on orders placed by retailers, Haseltine's book is No. 6 on the top 100 list of Christian books at Spring Arbor and No. 51 on Ingram's top 100 list.
But the clamor has me puzzled. The affirmation that each individual is unique isn't strictly a Christian belief.
I wonder if a book with a similar theme would create the same stir if a Buddhist or a Hindu author wrote it, or even someone not so well known in the field of Christian entertainment.
So, how is a book, or for that matter, today's rock music, categorized as Christian? Should it end up in a store's "Christian" section strictly by its content or its references to Jesus, or is it enough for a songwriter or author who openly professes his Christian beliefs to earn that classification? In Haseltine's case, will his association with contemporary Christian music affect everything else he wants to do by lumping it into the same "Christian" category?
For years parents plunked their children in front of the television set to hear Mr. Rogers tell them they each were special in their own way. He never preached his Christian perspectives, and many people never knew that Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian minister and his "Neighborhood" was his pastoral call.
Perhaps that's where Haseltine is coming from. He's a Christian who also happens to be a performer who knows how to appeal to the masses while getting his message across -- and he's also written a good children's book. He's not an evangelist. It's just how he lives his faith.
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