Content warning: This article mentions topics of eating disorders.
The newest book to leave shelves is the pink and sparkly 2006 children’s book Pinkalicious. With the tagline “Pink is perfect,” the series follows the titular character, Pinkalicious Pinkerton, an eight-year-old girl passionate about all things pink, especially pink cupcakes. Pinkalicious has appeared in 135 books thus far as her series has progressed, in addition to her own television series, podcast, and stage musical.
Seen as a staple in children’s literature, many were shocked to find Pinkalicious banned in Tennessee schools in October of last year as a result of House Bill 843, the Age-Appropriate Materials Act. According to the Nashville Banner, this bill mandates that “materials in a library collection must be suitable for the age and maturity levels of the students who may access the materials and must be suitable for, and consistent with, the educational mission of the school.” The nature of this bill being enforced onto the beloved series raised confusion and questions from families and educators alike, especially considering the reasoning for such has yet to be disclosed.
The book, along with 389 others, was removed from Wilson County specifically, the 19th largest country in the state and home to roughly 147,737 people. The district oversees 22 public schools, including two adult education centers. The county is also home to Cumberland University and TCAT Hartsville, which are institutions known for their focus on providing platforms for accessible education.
From Page to Screen
Pinkalicious has been polarizing readers since the series was released, and the PBS Kids series is no different. Pinkalicious and Peterrific first aired on PBS Kids in February of 2018. Currently, in its seventh season, the series has an almost equal percentage of one-star and five-star reviews on IMDb. The few written reviews of the series are a clear divide, with some viewers thinking Pinkalicious and Peterrific was an adorable series, and others finding the two main characters to be aggravating and unengaging, one user claiming the series is a “competition among the two children as to which one is more annoying than the other.”
Even with the less favorable reviews of the series, Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization devoted to determining if media is appropriate for children, approved the series for kid-friendly consumption. Calling Pinkalicious a “spunky book heroine,” their assessment placed the series at a three out of five for positive messaging and positive role models. Common Sense Media was unable to find any educational value in the series but rated it as a four out of five.
is pink really perfect?
Pinkalicious has faced some criticism in the past for the book’s discussion of skin tones. In the original installment of the series, she eats so many pink cupcakes that her skin begins to change color from her high intake of food dye. As her skin changes and she begins to turn pink, her parents are horrified. Pinkalicious is then told to eat vegetables to turn her skin back to its original color.
Points In Case, an online publication featuring humorous content, has acknowledged this about the series, specifically highlighting how when Pinkalicious’s skin wasn’t white, she was attacked by birds. They compared the birds to terrorist organizations, specifically calling them “an aerial unit of the KKK composed of racist birds and insects.” The review continues to state that the book implies that white people only consume vegetable-heavy diets. Although the review is meant to be humorous, the underlying themes still stand to be discussed by audiences.
The titular character has also faced criticism for her behavior, both on the page and on screen. In a 2009 review of the book from GoodReads, one reader states, “The little girl is naughty, spoiled, greedy, disobedient, sneaky and obnoxious…When her greed causes consequences (turning her pink) her parents are properly horrified, but she is delighted and refuses to do as the doctor and her parents tell her to do. She pretends to eat the healthy dinner then gets up in the night after her parents are asleep and steals more pink cupcakes.”
Throughout the many negative reviews of the book and series, the main two arguments against Pinkalicious that consistently appear are the question of Pinkalicious’s behavior and the skin tone plotline. Considering such, it can only be left to speculate whether this played a major role in its consequential ban.
“ban-alicious”
One of the authors of the books, Victoria Kann, took to social media following the ban, emphasizing her lack of knowledge as to why this happened to her work. She discussed the declining youth literacy statistics in the U.S., expressing that a ban on books children may want to read would only contribute more to a child’s lack of access to literature.
Ironically, on Feb. 11, 2025, The Wilson Times announced that Pinkalicious: Lost in Paris, a book from the Pinkalicious franchise, had been added to the Wilson County Public Library.
In the same realm of concerns alluded to by Kann, the banning of Pinkalicious may also raise the question of how limiting students’ access to books that discuss healthy eating may impact their interactions with diet culture. In 2000, the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics published a study that found that girls as young as five were concerned about their weight. The study cites, “Depending on the question, from 34% to 65% of girls aged [five] years had ideas about dieting.” Of 197 participants, 90% of their mothers reported dieting recently resulting in the high percentage of concerned five-year-olds.
The same study also cites that “dieting, weight concerns and body dissatisfaction have all been reported in children as young as age [seven] to [nine] years, and these reports are more common among girls than boys, with approximately 40% of elementary school-aged girls reporting that they have tried to diet to lose weight.” While not the initial intention of the series, Pinkalicious inadvertently draws attention to binge eating disorders, especially considering the secrecy surrounding her cupcake intake. Taking the lack of reasoning into account, it is unclear why Pinkalicious was banned, but its ban could limit the amount of representation of binge eating disorders within children’s literature.
The bottom line
While Pinkalicious may not be the final piece in the puzzle to combat diet culture or student literacy, its ban raises concerns about future literature access limitations. Especially considering the contradictory addition of Pinkalicious: Lost in Paris to Wilson Country libraries, this choice raises the question of the goals and considerations put into book bans and the overall educational censorship that students are subjected to. Wilson County students can no longer access the first book in the series, so they can’t decide for themselves if pink really is as perfect as Pinkalicious claims.