A handful of classic children’s books are headed to Springfield.
The Simpsons will pay tribute to some kid lit mainstays in an upcoming episode, TV Insider reports.
“The Children’s Book Job,” the premiere of the animated sitcom’s 38th season, will feature Emma Thompson—herself an author of children’s books, including The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Christmas Tale of Peter Rabbit—lending her voice to the character Constance Clavinger, a British kid-lit author who visits Springfield to appear at a book fair meant to benefit the town’s elementary school.
In the episode, showrunner Matt Selman said, Homer Simpson and Constance “form a friendship where they bond, they fight, they love each other, they betray each other — they have triumphs and they have failures, you know, all in like a 15-minute act.”
In one scene, Homer suffers a head injury and “enters the world of all these classic books, like Richard Scarry,” Selman says.
He added, “We really wanted to do a show about children’s books and do our version of classic children’s book art, like [Eric Carle’s] The Very Hungry Caterpillar and [Robert McCloskey’s] Make Way for Ducklings, [Jeff Kinney’s] Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and all that stuff. [We thought] to Simpsonify that stuff would be really fun and cool.”
The Simpsons has turned to literature before, having featured guest appearances by authors including Thomas Pynchon, John Updike, Amy Tan, J.K. Rowling, and Judy Blume.
“The Children’s Book Job” is scheduled to air on Sept. 27 on Fox.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
