My Life As A 10-Year-Old Boy - Reception

Reception

My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy's original print of 25,000 copies were sold on pre-order in the United Kingdom, with 38,000 copies being sold. Cartwright began a publicity tour in late October 2000, starting in her hometown of Dayton, Ohio, where the book became the top selling non-fiction in the town in the first week of November 2000.

Laura A. Bischoff of the Dayton Daily News commented that the book was the "ultimate insider's guide to The Simpsons." However, several critics commented that the book was straightforward and presented few interesting stories. Susan Shapiro of The New York Times wrote that "Although the paradoxes of being 'a celebrity nobody knows' are interesting, the photographs, diary entries and overly cute commentaries make this book feel like a personal scrapbook." Rosellen Brewer of the Library Journal commented that "Cartwright's own life notwithstanding, there is nothing really new or exciting here. She knew what she wanted to do and was able to do it; end of story." Lee Bacchus of The Province wrote that "This little book by the voice of Bart Simpson reads as if it were written by a 10-year-old boy. Not that that's all bad. Cartwright, who voices Bart along with Ralph Wiggum and a few others on The Simpsons, gives a very unchallenging tour behind the scenes of the phenomenally successful series. It's kind of fun to discover how the show is put together and how an adult woman snagged one of the coolest jobs in the world If only it wasn't all so relentlessly perky."

Another common criticism was that the book was aimed at fans of The Simpsons and not a general audience. A preview in People said the bottom line was that the book is "for die-hard fans only." Bacchus concurred, saying "Cartwright writes as if she were speaking to devotees of The Simpsons Fan Club, too often providing bland tidbits of background that only obsessives would ever really care about." Rob Sheridan of the National Post also believes that the book is "aimed squarely at rabid Simpsons fans", and criticized the writing, commenting that "the chronology of her story is sometimes muddled, and a lot of sentences have that first-draft feeling But none of this is anything to have a cow about."