After Kim Wernke Achman bought her 4-year-old daughters souvenir ukuleles on a trip to Hawaii, she ordered a lesson book on Amazon so that they could learn to play them. But My First Ukulele wasn’t the innocent how-to guide it seemed.
“I’m wondering if you can help me with a pretty bizarre issue,” Achman wrote on Amazon’s Facebook page. “Just a few minutes ago, my daughter handed me a page she colored for me. … I was so confused and asked her where she got that. She said it was in the ukulele book. I looked inside the ukulele lesson book to find that there was a coloring book called Unicorns Are Jerks right in the middle of the ukulele book. As in, you’re reading along with lessons then suddenly there’s a coloring book for several pages, then back to lessons.”
A customer service rep from Amazon seemed equally mystified. “That definitely is bizarre, Kim!” wrote Ruth M. “We’d be happy to look into this with you and get to the bottom of this strange ukulele/unicorn mix you received.” Although it looks like a printing error, My First Ukulele is a product from Kyle Craig Publishing, whereas Unicorns Are Jerks was self-published via CreateSpace. (Author Theo Nicole Lorenz is also behind the irreverent coloring books Dinosaurs With Jobs, Mer World Problems, and Fat Ladies in Spaaaaace.)
Luckily, the kids didn’t seem to mind the mix-up. “I’ve been laughing SO hard,” Achman wrote in the comments below her viral customer complaint. “The girls can’t read yet but keep asking 1) why are there unicorns in the ukulele lesson book and 2) why the unicorns are so naughty.”
Hijacking children’s musical education? Man, those things really are assholes.
