In the classic children’s book, “Where the Wild Things Are,” a boy named Max is sent to bed without his supper and ends up embarking on a years-long adventure to the land of the wild things.

Nothing so dramatic, fantastical, or child-centered occurs in Meghan Markle’s massively anticipated new children’s book, “The Bench.” The minimal action takes place on a bench, or on a series of benches, and the book focuses on a series of adult male protagonists mostly sitting on those benches. The main protagonist is clearly meant to be Meghan’s husband, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex.

‘The Bench’ by Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex (Penguin Random House) 

If anyone goes on an adventure in “The Bench,” it’s Harry, but his journey is nowhere near as lively as Max in his wolf-suit. Instead, “The Bench” consists of the book’s narrator — the Duchess of Sussex — contemplating her husband’s new role as a father and all the love and support she imagines he’ll provide for their 2-year-old son, Archie, as he grows up.

In the narrative of “The Bench,” Archie and other children essentially play supporting roles in Harry’s story, which raises the question of whether Meghan really wrote a children’s book, or something aimed at adults, specifically for new fathers like Harry.

Published this week, “The Bench” began as a poem Meghan wrote on Father’s Day for Harry, soon after Archie’s birth. It explores the emotional connection between fathers and their sons.

It’s a lovely idea, but critics say that Meghan — a former actress, not an accomplished author — hasn’t translated that idea into a story that will engage and entertain its intended audience, children ages 3 to 7. Indeed, the main criticism is that the book doesn’t seem to be at all written for young children, but rather with “one reader in mind,” wrote New Statesman critic Sophie McBain.

‘The Bench,’ by Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. Illustrations by Christian Robinson (Penguin Random House) 

Harry’s likeness and distinctive red hair and beard show up in several watercolor illustrations by Caldecott-winning illustrator Christian Robinson. The army veteran appears as the father cradling his son on the opening spread and as the father in army fatigues, throwing his son into the air.

Harry also appears as the father on the final page in what appears to be the couple’s Montecito estate, where they moved after leaving royal duties in 2020. He’s helping his son feed their rescue chickens as their two dogs look on. The same illustration appears to show Meghan from the back, tending a kitchen garden and perhaps cradling their newborn daughter, Lilibet Diana, in a sling.

Throughout Meghan’s entire narration, she cements the book’s focus by addressing the second-person “you” — Harry. “This is your bench/Where life will begin/For you and our son/Our baby, our kin,” the first page reads.

Sarah Lyall of the New York Times tries to be generous about the book by saying its message to her husband is “heartfelt” but chides Meghan for her clunky text. With its fewer than 200 words, Lyall said “every syllable” counts, and a “heavier editing hand would have been a big help.” The book’s contorted rhymes are “not terrible” but they aren’t “terrific” either.

Lyall and other critics have zeroed in on the last line: “Right there on your bench/The place you’ll call home …/ With daddy and son … /Where you’ll never be ‘lone.” Lyall said what Meghan did with the last line, contracting “alone” to “‘lone” “should be illegal.”

The U.K. children’s literary community seems particularly annoyed that Meghan, like Sarah Ferguson, apparently thought it would be easy to dash off a children’s book. “Writing good picture books for small children is far harder than it looks,” wrote Alex O’Connell, a critic for the Times of the U.K.

Stories written to entertain and engage young children need a basic rhythm and a good story, O’Connell wrote. Above all, good picture books put children at the center of the story, O’Connell added. These are the necessary ingredients in enduring children’s classics, with examples including Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are,” or Ezra Jack Keats’ “The Snowy Day,” Margaret Wise Goodman’s “Goodnight Moon” and Dr. Seuss’s “The Cat in the Hat.”

McBain added that the books that parents and children bond over “might have a rollicking rhyme, they might be slyly or even wickedly funny, they might have just the right level of sentimentality, so that they are sweet but not sickly.”

McBain and Irish Times critic Rosita Boland agreed with Lyall’s critical assessment about Meghan’s poetry. They also said the the book unfolds in a series of “disparate” platitudes that consist of “contorted lines that don’t scan and rhymes that don’t rhyme.”

The platitudes “might appeal to a highly emotional father, insecure in his new role,” McBain said. For that reason, the book fits into a current genre of children’s literature that she said is known as “books as medicine,” which deliver a simplistic moral message.

O’Connell similarly said that “The Bench” reads like it’s penned “as a self-help manual for needy parents rather than as a story to entertain small kids.”

It’s also hard to escape how “unavoidably personal” the book is, O’Connell added. Followers of royal family gossip will notice the book’s apparent digs at Harry’s royal upbringing. In his recent bombshell interviews with Oprah Winfrey and Dax Shepard, Harry complained that his father, Prince Charles, was never emotionally supportive and never even took him for bike rides.

“He’ll learn to ride a bike/As you watch on with pride,” the book says on one page, while on another it reads: “You’ll love him/You’ll listen/You’ll be his supporter.”

These critics reserve their praise for Robinson’s “beautiful” illustrations, which they said celebrate diversity, with images of Black families, a Sikh father, a father in a wheelchair, and a father and son doing ballet. But these characters, like Harry’s son, come across as supporting players in Harry’s story, the critics said.

It’s easy to see how Meghan fell “into the same trap as many new parents,” who are brimming with their new-parent glow and confident of their ability to create a good children’s story, McBain said.

“I imagine Prince Harry was touched by his wife’s heartfelt reflections on the father he will be to his son and newborn daughter. It makes for a beautiful gift — for Harry,” McBain wrote.