We're all probably familiar with Alec Greven, the fifth grader whose book How To Talk To Girls earned him what seems to be a permanent place on the morning show slow news day booking cycle. The idea of his book was adorable, but the novelty has worn off and we're left with a normal ten-year-old kid who appears to be as bored with the topic of dating as we are with hearing him talk about it. New on the weird-age dating book scene, however, is Howard Eisenberg, the 82-year-old author of It's Never Too Late To Date. This morning, The Early Show decided to throw the two guys together for one interview, even though the challenges they face in the dating world have nothing in common other than, presumably, a lack of penetration.

After some stammering by Alec and a few old-man cliche stories by Howard, the interview got going when Harry Smith asked the guys how they deal with rejection. "You just go home and cry," Howard said, and at first it's like "Oh my god, that is so sad, that poor old man" but then Howard laughed and said "We tell women to push this guy, this loser, mentally off a cliff." Little Alec said simply "Life is hard, move on." (The title of his next book, perhaps!) When the subject of "the L word" comes up, Howard advocated men lying to women and claiming they have a phone call, right in front of little Alec! He also mentioned pushing people off cliffs again for good measure. Clip above.

It's really not Alec Greven's fault. He's probably a very nice kid. At first, when his first book came out and seemed like a sweet-natured, genuine one-off, we were totally on board! And his mini-empire (three books, a film and counting) of from-the-mouths-of-babes self-helpery exists not because of his ingratiating manner or eerily erect posture - who doesn't want to please adults at 10? - but because a large team of variegated grown-ups has decided to make him a cottage industry. You gotta get a gimmick, after all, and his - or that of his handlers - is the ingenuous affect of a much younger child, a play on some half-remembered nostalgia for Our Gang-style innocence, and the dispensing of "advice" to the community of adults for whom, presumably, the "Gifts for Grads" table at Barnes and Noble is intended.

(In fact, if we have one fault to find with Alec Greven, it is that he makes us think ungenerous, mean thoughts about a child, which in turn makes us hate ourselves and deplore the slow death of our better natures. But in the cold light of day, we pity him his cash-cow existence (which at this point evokes a Dickensian setup in which he cranks out books) and the adults who enable it. And, naturally, wish him a speedy recovery.)

Ben Karlin, on the other hand, has no excuse. Karlin, the Daily Show-creator and lesson-learner whose self-regarding douchebaggery we have chronicled on these virtual pages, has pursued his path to infamy with an arrow's precision (the kind of precision that allows Robin Hood to split that guy's arrow in the tournament.) Not content to have made major, important and quality contributions to the collective consciousness, Karlin has persistently aligned himself with a sort of deceptively self-deprecating style of man-share always dispensed from the safe height of Important Lessons Already Learned.

Well, now these two giants of the modern emotional landscape are coming together! Karlin, in company with one Stu Zicherman - apparently his partner in crime on A.C.O.D. (Adult Children of Divorce) - is to turn Greven's first work, How to Talk to Girls, into a movie. All we know at this juncture is that the script is based on "Greven's extensive experience on the playa-ground" and that the producers envision a "warm-hearted comedy."

While the collaborative process itself seems ripe for a heartwarming Ryan Reynolds flick (and introducing some self-assured scamp of an L.A. scion with sun-streaked hair in the Greven role), we can't imagine the two screenwriters are actually going to be taking advantage of the author's consultant potential. Rather, as has been the case so far with the child's work, it will be quickly re-packaged to fit some adult's idea of how children exist in relationship to themselves. The whole pitiable scheme seems to lend itself almost too easily to conjecture about the nature of modern childhood, sexualization, filthy lucre, and all manner of literature of alienation. Better as usual to cite the immortal words of Stevie Smith, "it is a pity to be so silly."

Two Scribes Tapped For 'Girls' [The Hollywood Reporter]

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OK, No Longer Cute

Slocumb — refreshingly garbed in an un-Bratz-like t-shirt and jumper — can instantly point to Darfur on a globe at a reporter's request. Though she's given three public speeches against the Darfur genocide, and helped sell "sacrifice beads" to raise money for the cause, she's not allowed to see dark for documentary The Devil Came on Horseback, because it's too violent. One of her speeches begins, "I care because I am a young girl and I believe young girls everywhere should be safe."

Her words are affecting, and certainly children should be allowed to stand up for what they believe in. But there's something a little unsettling about young children moving too far into adult realms like book publishing, public speaking, and punditry. Ten-year-old Alec Greven won fame with his book How To Talk To Girls — now that he's on his third book, his success begins to reek of gimmickry. As Jessica noted, his first book isn't actually helpful for talking to adult women, and most of its success probably had to do with the cuteness of a little kid writing a dating guide. Do we really want to make kids' cuteness into more of a commodity than it already is, especially when the most famous cute people — child actors — often have such difficult adult lives?

For someone like fourteen-year-old conservative pundit Jonathan Krohn, the draw is probably more precocity than outright cuteness. It's hard to imagine former education secretary and drug czar William Bennett becoming a "mentor and very good friend" to a self-published author with no high school diploma — unless that author happened to be in eighth grade. One downside of Krohn's fame is pretty obvious: when you're a kid, you say a lot of things that will seem stupid when you're an adult. Luckily, for most kids these are not recorded. But Krohn will be able to look back at the New York Times in ten or twenty years and remember — along with the rest of the nation — that at fourteen he said, "Barack Obama is the most left-wing president in my lifetime."

Kids who develop public personas at a young age miss out on an important childhood privilege — privacy. Average kids have eighteen whole years before they're even expected to vote, eighteen years in which the only audience for their opinions is their family and whoever will listen on the playground. This time gives kids a chance to formulate a sense of self without too many people watching, and without the massive, confusing feedback that can come from speaking one's thoughts to a large audience. Denying kids this safe period of time — allowing them to use the novelty of their youth to gain fame — may make them into people-pleasers, exposed too much and too soon to the euphoria of public approval and the bitterness of public criticism. At the very least, it robs kids of the chance to practice having opinions in relative private, a chance everyone should get to have. So while Freya Slocumb's commitment to ending genocide is admirable, let's hope her parents protect her from overexposure as much as they protect her from violence.

Raising Money And Giving Speeches For Justice In Darfur — And Only 8 years Old [MinnPost.com]
The Little Mr. Conservative [New York Times]

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Girls is the first of what will be a series of four books by Greven, ostensibly on the subject of conversing with the ladies. You may be wondering: who's actually buying this thing? Unsurprisingly, Time says it's not really helpful when talking to grown up girls; the magazine does say, however, that the book "makes for a good gag gift. Have a permanently single male friend? Want to creep out strangers by reading it alone at a bar? Self-help books written by 9-year-olds provide endless opportunities for awkward, uncomfortable amusement."

And apparently, people love awkward uncomfortable amusement: Girls is ranked #103 in books on Amazon. Here are some excerpts (courtesy of Time) from Greven's masterpiece so that you'll know if this gag gift is appropriate for the men in your life:

On relationships: "Sometimes, you get a girl to like you, then she ditches you. Life is hard, move on! Or sometimes it just doesn't work out. I had a crush on a girl in preschool. Then my family had to move, so I had to let her wash out of my mind."

On having a crush: "Many boys get crushes on girls. But it can be very hard to get a girl to like you. Sometimes it takes years! Whatever happens, just don't act desperate. Girls don't like desperate boys. So what do you do if you have a crush on a girl? You need to get her to like you. You can also show off a skill, like playing soccer or anything else you're good at. If you are in elementary school, try to get a girl to like you, not to love you. Wait until middle school to try to get her to love you. Otherwise, you have to hold on to her for a long time and that would be very hard. Tip: Most boys in elementary school can hold on to a girl for only 30 days."

On gifts: "It is also good to give gifts. They don't have to be big. Try to find out what she likes before you give her something. You should go around to her friends to get ideas. And I wouldn't do flowers and gifts until you are older, like in middle school, because it seems weird in elementary school. Unless you go to a school dance."

Fox Learns 'How To Talk To Girls' [Variety]
How To Talk To Girls [Time]

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I was recently sitting with a friend's 8-year-old for an evening, when she brought me to her room to show me a note a little boy in her class had sent her. "I know you have a boyfriend," he'd written in a large, childish scrawl, "but I need to have you in my life." He went on to say that her happiness was the most important thing to him; he'd included a flower, which she had thrown away. Maybe Alec Greven's on to something!

When some of us were in third grade, we were so tiny and borderline feral that romance was not really an issue: such interactions were limited to intense secret crushes, occasional haughty snubbings, and spelling competitions with flirtatious undertones. When one little boy did like me, I was so humiliated that I asked to be moved to a different desk group. One of my out-of-school friends lied about having an older 4th grade boyfriend, which made me very uncomfy. A few couples in my class 'dated,' which didn't mean that they went anywhere or actually acknowledged each other. And I have a very distinct memory of one little girl attempting to impress a boy she liked by bringing all her horseback riding trophies to school and casually arraying them atop her desk; she was regarded with pity by the rest of the class.

So, based on this, a perusal of old diaries and recent interaction with abovementioned babysittee, here is what our inner 9-year-old girl would advise with regards to dating boys:

-Always be nice. Even if you don't like someone back, never humiliate him and try to keep things private.
-Keep all notes.
-If you like a boy, don't bring all your horseback riding trophies to school and put them on your desk, because everyone will know what you are doing and you won't be able to open your desk.

Your turn, belles! If we want to compile something definitive here, we're going to need a lot of child-channeling and, more to the point, as much advice as you can get from real 9-year-olds. Sisters? Cousins? Pupils? Bring it on! We'll compile all the advice we get as a public service.

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