Oops, Bloomsbury does it again! A Book With A Black Main Character Gets A White Person On The Cover! And It's Not "Liar" - It's "Magic Under Glass!"

So when Justine Larbalestier's "Liar" came out, this was the cover:



There was a BIG stink made, and rightly so, over the fact that, um... the main character WASN'T a white girl. She was black. Even the author voiced her respectful disappointment with the cover misrepresenting her book, and something amazing happened: The cover was changed. Here's the new cover.



So, moving on. You'd think the lesson would have been learned, wouldn't you?

You'd be wrong.

So the same publishers (Bloomsbury) come out with Jaclyn Dolamore's "Magic Under Glass."

Here's the cover:



So does that young woman match, as it says on page 96, a main character who would say "[The dress] dipped low in back and front...exposing what seemed like far too much of my brown skin."

Um, NO.

Once again, a YA book starring a person of color is being made to look - by the cover - as a YA book about a white person.

And that's really a disservice to the story, and to the readers.

As Ari from Reading In Color put it so heart-wrenchingly in her "Open Letter to Bloomsbury Kids USA,"

Do you know how sad I feel when my middle school age sister tells me she would rather read a book about a white teen than a person of color because "we aren't as pretty or interesting." She doesn't know the few books that do exist out there about people of color because publishing houses like yourself, don't put people of color on the covers.

The upside? This publisher responded to the public pressure and shame of what they did once, by changing the cover for "Liar." We should raise our voices along with Ari and many others, and express how important it is (to all publishers) to not white-wash the ethnicity of the characters when they design their covers.

Now here's the breaking news: Bloomsbury just announced "Bloomsbury is ceasing to supply copies of the US edition of Magic Under Glass. The jacket design has caused offense and we apologize for our mistake. Copies of the book with a new jacket design will be available shortly."


I'm glad they're gonna change this one, too, but shouldn't the lesson have been learned by now?

Wanna contact Bloomsbury and share your thoughts?

You can e-mail Bloomsbury editorial here: bloomsbury.kids@bloomsburyusa.com

And of course, you can share what you write them here in comments!

Interestingly, this is an issue that's popping up all over the place:

Bookshelves of doom has a great piece about "The Mysterious Benedict Society" books, where the character of Sticky is brown-skinned in the inside illustrations and um, white on the covers of book #2 and #3!

And there's a new fantasy anthology by Chinese writers where they've made the cover image of the dragon a Western (read: white) dragon rather than an Asian (read: ethnic) dragon. Seriously.

Here's one more thing you can do: The lovely Nathalie Mvondo has created a petition to All Publishing Houses, letting them know that as readers, we'll still buy the books if the covers accurately represent the characters within! It's elegant and very polite, and you can sign it here.

Namaste,
Lee


Thanks to Ari for getting the word out and being so amazing, and Charlotte, for pulling so many great quotes from "Magic Under Glass" where the character of Nimira refers to how she looks! My appreciation to EVERYONE who joined in the protest, and also thanks to Nathalie, for letting me know about Bloomsbury's change of heart on the cover for "Magic Under Glass!"

Boys & Book Cover Shame: Will e-books get boys reading more?

So recently on the amazing twitter #kidlitchat that's on Tuesday nights (6pm west coast time), a discussion of e-books came up, and it was mentioned that Romance is the biggest selling category of e-books.

The theory was Book Cover Shame. The idea that it's embarrassing walking around with a book whose cover is pretty much the equivalent of you SCREAMING:

"I'm reading a bodice-ripping romance novel because I need more passion in my life!"

In contrast, an e-book is completely anonymous. You could be reading about Proust's remembering his pastry (Remembrance Of Things Past) or Orwell's dystopia (1984) - nobody knows what you're reading except you.

And I think that there's an amazing upside to this idea.

See, there's this parallel concept in Children's and especially Teen publishing that boys won't read books that they don't want to be seen with. Hence, boys won't read any books that "look" girly. And thus most of the marketing and promotion of Teen books - especially any books with female protagonists - skews towards girls, because they are the "readers." This makes "girl book" covers look even MORE girly, to appeal to girl readers.

Boys, if they read, are seen as reluctant, and only willing to read about boy protagonists on "manly" adventures. Boy book covers are macho.

Much of the time the cover art pretty much conveys to everyone if the book is considered a "girl book" or a "boy book." Look for yourself:

Girl covers:

Boy Covers:

But enter e-books. If I'm a 15 year old guy, I may LOVE vampire stories, but I don't necessarily want the other kids at school seeing me walking around carrying "Twilight." Especially after the movie and all those sparkly-in-the-sunlight Edward moments. Now I can read it. If I want to read "Wintergirls" or "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" - well, now I can. And nobody has to know, unless I tell them.

Think about what this means for GAY books. Boys AND girls can now carry around and read the amazing GLBTQ titles here on this blog anonymously.

Nobody will know if you're reading "The God Box" or "Gravity." Nobody will know if you're thinking about "can I be Gay and believe in God?" or if you're thinking about which Jonas Brother is cutest... err, most talented. If it's on your e-book, you could be reading ANYthing, and no one across the cafeteria would know.

E-books allow everyone access to stories and information in a way that's private. And there are moments as a teenager when I would have LOVED that level of privacy (After all, I read Anne McCaffrey's fantasy novels with girl protagonists!)

So while I love paper books (or as I recently heard someone call them, "the dead tree versions of books") I think there's quite an upside to this whole e-book transition.

And sure, I look forward to the day when anyone can carry around ANY book and not be embarrassed or made to feel bad about themselves because of what that book is. But for right here, right now? E-books mean that boys and girls are going to read more. Without fear of Book Cover Shame.

And that's a great thing.

What do you think? Have you ever experienced or seen Book Cover Shame in action? Do you think e-books might change that?

Namaste,
Lee