by Benn Ray
At this point, everyone in Baltimore is on a city-wide scavenger hunt - looking for the thousands of copies of Mayor (for the time being) Catherine Pugh's children's books, the Healthy Holly series which University of Maryland Medical Systems/Kaiser Permanente and Associated Black Charities paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars for.
Okay, first, writers don't get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a children's book unless maybe you're talking Captain Underpants or Diary of a Wimpy Kid. And even then, it doesn't come in the form of an advance that large.
Next, publishers are only paying big money on mega-bestsellers where they can recoup their money. These Healthy Holly books are not real books. They are not being distributed to retail outlets which is why you can't find them in bookstores. The publisher isn't wholesaling them. They are not made available to book distributors. These are not, from the view of this bookseller, a real book. It is something else.
Traditionally, this kind of something else is a vanity project. However, Pugh is getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for this book and vanity projects typically come out of the author/artists pocket. So that puts it in the realm of promotion.
This is the sort of book that is some kind of in-house charity publication or something being published by a thinktank where they buy copies back and give them away for free and try to get on the bestsellers list so they can claim some kind of ideological validation based on sales. Except, again, these books were never reported sold. And if they were a published and distributed as in-house charity, with the amount of money spent on these books, schools, churches, rec centers, etc. all over the city would be lousy with them. And instead, here we are, playing Baltimore City Scavenger Hunt looking for these books. Because without them, it just looks like corruption. Hell, even if copies turn up at this point, it still looks like corruption.
***ONE STARS!***
But even if these books aren't real, that doesn't stop them from accumulating One-Star Reviews on Amazon:
"On March 13, 2019, the Baltimore Sun published an article exposing how Baltimore City Mayor, Catherine Pugh, a board member of the University of Maryland Medical System since 2001, has a contract with UMMS to buy this book. The article reports that Pugh cleared $100,000 profit in 2017 by selling 20,000 copies to the UMMS. Pugh reportedly said she has a deal where UMMS buys her books every two years." -Amazon Customer
"The mayor arranged for 100,000 of these books to be purchased by the University of Maryland Medical System to donate to the schools of Baltimore. Somehow most of these were not given out. There is now a mystery hunt for the remaining Healthy Holly books--nearly 9000 turned up in a city warehouse in East Baltimore. No need to buy one of these, about 60,000 are still unaccounted for and the Mayor and School Superintendent should be able to point to these and start distributing them to children and readers as originally intended!" -Greg From Baltimore
"Yep, that's Baltimore. Nice little scam. Publish a childrens book and use your position on the board to purchase it with nonprofit funds." -Don Julio
"Exercising is fun, but money laundering is funner. This series of books is now a hard-to-find collectors' item (especially the titles that don't exist), although still probably not worth $100,000." -Konstantine Simakis
"The mayor should try working at one of Bmore's health systems full time and taking home $500 a week, not $500,000. Not too easy to support a family on that as a single parent." -Andrea
"Huckster Holly - teaches kids how to steal $500,000 and get away with it." -Amy
"Can't wait for the bext in the series "Hollys healthy Democrat extortion" Holly grows up and runs for political office, does nothing for the city, and becones [sic] rich. Its a nail bitter. Released next month with 10% discount only $99,000 per hardback book. -C. Lane
"Turns out "Holly" is the nickname for Pugh's bank account. It's VERY healthy." -Vince Weaver
"She's an entrepreneur" -Vincent Delorenzo
"I can't wait for the next installment in the series - Healthy Holly: Defrauding the Citizens of Charm City. Coming soon to an otherwise empty warehouse near you." -E5150
"I got a tip from buddy at Kaiser that all you have to do is agree to buy a hundred thousand dollars of this terrible children's book and then Mayor Pugh would give my company $48 million in Baltimore city contracts. So I bought 10,000 copies for the local children! Not only did I not receive the books, I didn't get any city contracts! I'm sick to my stomach, I think I've got pneumonia!!! Baltimore used to be a place where the worst thing a mayor would do is steal tax payer funded gift cards from the poor or give hundreds of kids free range to riot. But this book mayor takes the cake!" -Tom Arasz
"Hey Pugh... [middle finger emoji]" - Lindsxo
"Not available on Kindle!" -Amazon Customer
It also got a 3 star review:
"As a 44 year old man, this is One of the best books I have read all year. Before reading this, I thought exercise was not fun. Now I know it IS fun. And selling exercise books is even more fun! Yeah!" -Amazon Customer
And a couple of 5 star reviews:
"I don't understand these haters and their mean reviews. Healthy Holly was totally worth the $500,000.00 I paid for it. The fact that I run a major healthcare conglomerate has nothing to do with it, either!" -Amazon Customer
"I bought 50 of these and finally my rooftop deck permit got approved. 10/10 would buy again" -R.C.
What is it about these petulant ONE-STARS that make me want to like the books?