Keira Knightly and Jamie Oliver are the latest stars to write children’s books, but too often famous names hide the talents of ghostwriters

The Society of Authors (SoA) is calling for celebrities, publishers and agents to acknowledge all writers behind books written by well-known figures, in particular children’s books. You couldn’t put your name on the bottom of a painting, or claim to have composed a piece of music created by someone else, no matter how famous you might be. But this happens all the time in publishing, where there seems no end to the appetite for books by Hollywood actors, pop stars, comedians or members of the royal family.

There is nothing new about stars trying their hand at children’s fiction (Julie Andrews published Mandy back in 1971). But the announcement in October that Keira Knightley is publishing her first children’s novel, billed as “a modern classic”, was met with anger among children’s writers who took to social media to joke that they wanted to become film stars. The written word can be a tricky thing to navigate for the untutored. Jamie Oliver was forced to pull his new title Billy and the Epic Escape after it was criticised for perpetuating harmful stereotypes and “trivialising painful histories” of First Nations people.