Books

This Whole Newspaper Was Written By Children

by Emma Oulton

I didn’t think there was room for personalized children’s book company Lost My Name to get any more adorable, but they’ve just proved me wrong: This year, Lost My Name published The Amazing Fantastic Year in Review, a newspaper entirely written by 4–7 year olds. One thousand kids from the U.K., U.S., Canada, and Australia contributed their worldly knowledge to the publication, which is available online or as a printed newspaper. And yeah, it’s every bit as delightful as it sounds.

The Amazing Fantastic Year in Review may not be quite as informative as other "Year in Review" round-ups, but it makes for a way happier read. Instead of complaining about Apple’s extortionate prices, Lost My Name’s children’s newspaper stated that they’d happily pay £10,000 ($15,000) for an Apple Watch as long as “it doesn’t explode” (otherwise the price drops to $15 — which is actually still quite a lot for an exploding watch...). And space isn’t such a scary place when you’re given the advice: “if something is coming through [a black hole] you can tape it up.” The only time things got a little hairy was in the newspaper’s predictions for 2016: “There’s going to be zombies. Australia won’t find out. They don’t watch Newsround.”

But there’s more to the newspaper than just a totally enchanting read; there are a few moments of astonishing clarity. After all, children are way more perceptive than we sometimes give them credit for — demonstrated, for example, when they wisely noted that while Hillary Clinton “wants to show people not only boys can do things,” Donald Trump’s only “qualifications” are that he’s “annoying” and looks “like a rabbit.” I mean, you’ve got to hand it to them. They’re not wrong.

While I read The Amazing Fantastic Year in Review online, I started kinda wishing that kids were actually in charge of the country — particularly when I saw that, when asked what the USA most needs in a president, they answered: someone who “wears things from the '80s, '90s, '70s, stuff like that.” Totally agreed, kids.

Children handed their newspaper out to commuters in London, New York, Sydney and Toronto — and brightened the mornings of city workers across the world, and this super-cute video shows them in action. Lost My Name just can't stop making people smile, can they?!

Images: Courtesy of Lost My Name