An author in Albany, New York, is claiming that former first daughter Chelsea Clinton and her publisher, Penguin Random House, stole a book idea from him that was turned into a best-selling children’s feminist book, “She Persisted.”
The book was officially credited to Clinton when it was published on May 30.
Christopher Janes Kimberley, 56, filed a lawsuit recently in the U.S. District Court for Southern New York. He’s seeking up to $150,000 in damages for copyright infringement.
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The writer alleges that he sent a pitch for an illustrated book titled “A Heart Is the Part That Makes Boys And Girls Smart” to Jennifer Loja, president of Penguin Young Readers U.S., in 2013. The writer claims that Loja then gave the idea and the work to Clinton.
“I did months of painstaking research on my book. Her version looks like a ninth-grade homework assignment,” Kimberley told The New York Post. “I am in disbelief.”
Kimberley said both books use quotes from the same women — Helen Keller, Harriet Tubman and Nellie Bly — and use similar images.
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The writer in April filed a cease-and-desist order in an effort to get Penguin to stop publishing the New York Times best-selling book.
“The appearance of impropriety is striking,” the author said in court papers.
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