Russell Brand Might Be Reinterpreting Fairy Tales

Russell Brand — comedian, former druggie, admitted sex addict, and ex-husband of Katy Perry — wants teach your sweet little child a thing or two about the world. His latest venture into the world of letters is a series called Russell Brand's Trickster Tales, in which Brand reinterprets classic children's stories and attempts to creep into your kid's heart and soul forever.

On April 1, Brand uploaded a video to YouTube in which he reads aloud from the first Trickster Tale, confidently adorned with a dilapidated gray beanie. The tale turns out to be a rat-filled and fairly moralizing version of "The Pied Piper of Hamelin":

The glint-eyed piper knew that each breath we take is borrowed. The glint-eyed piper knew that all things are connected, the clouds, the people, the rats, the pipe, the music. All things are connected by invisible threads. The people of the town didn't know that, for they only cared about things they could see and eat and get prizes for.

In the video, Brand informs us that this folky interpretation is the first of a series, and that he believes folk tales and fairy tales are "the code to unlock aspects of our consciousness and to affect and impact the way we see the world" because "once we start changing the way children see the world — [sigh] — oh, we can do all sorts of stuff."

Time reports that the Pied Piper tale will be out November 11 by publisher Atria Books of Simon & Schuster. Illustrator Chris Riddell will be sketching out the rats on the page. (We've reached out to Atria Books to make sure this isn't just a strange April Fool's prank.) If Brand is serious, he wants to teach your children about materialism and the interconnectedness of all things. Glint-eyed piper, indeed.