Comedian Michael Ian Black’s new Dr. Seuss-inspired children’s book that casts Donald Trump as a small-handed “beast” is set to be published just before July’s Republican National Convention.
“If you were a child and you were to spot a Trump in the woods, what would you do?” Black told the Daily Beast about the concept behind his new book. “How would you identify it? What are its characteristics? How does it behave? How do you keep yourself safe?”
The 44-year-old Wet Hot American Summer star’s latest children’s book — entitled A Child’s First Book of Trump — uses playful rhymes to take shots at the GOP presidential frontrunner’s hands and business ventures: “Its fur so complex, you might get enveloped. Its hands are, sadly, underdeveloped. Trump this and Trump that, and Trump buildings and steaks. Trump airplanes and clothing and several Trump mates.”
“If he becomes president, my career is going to take off like a rocket,” Black said, adding that he’s hoping Trump’s political fortune turns out to be “good for book sales.”
“I can do a whole series of these books. I can do one on the first hundred days, on the inevitable impeachment. There’s all kinds of great things I can do.”
Black admitted that his new anti-Trump children’s book is, in fact, suited for an adult audience. But he added that parents could read the book to their children.
“If the kids know nothing about Trump and politics, they would still find it funny,”
Describing his outlook on the 2016 presidential race, Black, a Hillary Clinton supporter, said the notion of a Donald Trump presidency is an “unthinkable” and “alarming” possibility.
“It is alarming to think about, at its core, what is the distillation of the Trump phenomenon,” he said. “Because even his supporters say, temperamentally, he has some work to do. On foreign policy, he has some work to do. On domestic policy, he has some work to do.”
Trump “has no platform, principles or character. So what does he have?” Black asked before answering his own question: “Two things. One, deporting millions of people and two, banning Muslims. If that is the essence of his message, then that is alarming for what it says about us as a nation.”
A Child’s First Book of Trump is due out July 5. Pre-orders have already begun on Amazon.
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