BOSTON, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Some U.S. books stores won't sell a book on weight loss geared to children ages 4-8, booksellers say.
Self-published author Paul M. Kramer's "Maggie Goes on a Diet," scheduled for release Oct. 16, is getting a lot of angry comments the Web sites of Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
Lisa Hutchinson posted on Amazon that reading the book to kids "is tantamount to child abuse," the Boston Herald reports.
The book, which sells for $15.95, tells a story in rhyme of an overweight 14-year-old girl who raids the refrigerator after she is humiliated by classmates, but who would later "make up her mind. She promised herself she was going to reduce her stomach as well as her big behind."
After eight months of dieting and exercise, Maggie is thin and popular with boys.
"It worries me that he equates thinness to popularity," Dr. Claire McCarthy, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital Boston," tells the Herald, while, Terri Schmitz, owner of The Children's Book Shop in Brookline, Mass., says "I've seen a lot of appalling books in my time, but this one is the absolute worst."
The heavy-set author, who says he had struggled with obesity, says he tackles real-life children's issues.
"It's a feel-good book," Kramer says, "It's to get the message out for children to be aware that they can do something about their situation if they wish to."
