Meghan Markle enjoys being 'doors opened' with the title of Duchess of Sussex
Meghan and Harry: 'unlikely' titles will be removed, source says
The Duchess of Sussex has released the children's book The Bench, which is about the relationship between a father and son as seen through the eyes of her mother. The book, which is unsurprisingly inspired by Prince Harry's relationship with her son Archie, has received some criticism, including Meghan's choice to include her title in large letters on the front. Meghan has also been challenged by the subject of the book, considering that she is now separated from her own father Thomas Markle and the comments that Harry has made about Prince Charles.
On the other hand, others have argued that the book is simply a sweet story for children and that no one is forced to buy it.
One royal commentator noted how Meghan enjoys how "the door is open for you" in the role she currently finds herself in, adding that the same cannot be said for all aspiring writers.
Pod Save the Queen is hosted by Ann Gripper and features Daily Mirror actual editor Russell Myers.
Gripper said, 'I guess I also thought about the number of people who are probably trying to write children's books and get published and all that sort of thing and then once you're the Duchess of Sussex you can basically publish a book if you want.
The Bench was inspired by Harry's relationship with Archie (Image: Random House Children’s Books and.)
"So I thought it was interesting, so I had feelings for those people."
She added, "It's great to be a duchess, the door is open for you!"
On the more positive side, Ms. Gripper emphasized that Meghan's book featuring a non-white family was fantastic for the representation.
She cited a statistic that revealed that only a small percentage of children's books feature black, Asian or ethnic minority protagonists.
She said: “It reminded me of a couple of interviews I heard when I was driving over the weekend, one with Floella Benjamin, who was a children's presenter when you and I were little, used to host Play School.
“I heard hers Desert Island Disks from hers and she was talking about how she had been fighting for a better on-screen representation of essentially non-white faces from the '70s.
“And then there was another interview with another author that she hadn't heard of, a children's author named Humza Arshad, whose new book Little Bad Man and the Radioactive Samosa, which is a fantastic name for a book…
“I think the statistic was something like that only 1 percent of children's books when I was little had any representation that was not white.
"So I think that's interesting and I'm sure representativeness and augmentation would be a good thing."
An analysis in November revealed that only five percent of children's books featured a BAME main character, up from four percent in 2018 and a measly one percent in 2017.
Reports from the Center for Literacy in Prime Education (CLPE) found that the number of books with any BAME character was just 10 percent, up from seven percent in 2018 and four percent in 2017.
This compares with 33.5 per cent of primary school-age children in England who are of minority ethnic origin.
Meghan and Harry: Expert urges 'dispense RHS titles'
In this way, Meghan's book will help improve the representation of children of these origins.
Meghan's book has already proven very popular and was reportedly sold on Amazon.
The announcement coincided with the release of Hold Still by Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, which is raising funds for The Mind and the National Portrait Gallery.
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Hold Still was called a "triumph" by royal expert Russell Myers, and it has also sold many copies, raising a great deal of money for the organizations involved.
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