Yes. Bloomsbury has done it again.Jezebel reports on it
here and you can email Bloomsbury here:
Editorial and Marketing office:
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Phone: 646-307-5151
Fax: 212-780-0115
bloomsbury.kids@bloomsburyusa.com
children.publicity@bloomsburyusa.com
Below is the letter I just emailed them:
I was very aware of the controversy over Justine Larbalestier Liar last year (for one thing, she’s a friend of mine) and note that Bloomsbury backed off and changed the cover image from a young white woman to a (very light) African American woman. But it seems that your company still hasn’t learned that this kind of racism is no longer going to be ignored by the children’s lit community. You’ve done it again with Jaclyn Dolamore's first novel Magic Under Glass about a dark-skinned young woman from the far east. Please stop assuming that 1) no one (black or white) notices and 2) that we don’t care.
I’ve been in publishing for over thirty five years so you don’t need to inform me about marketing, etc.
With disappointment
Ellen Datlow
Editor
www.datlow.com
- Another whitewash of a YA novel character's color
-
ellen_datlow- January 18th, 2010
2010-01-19 02:59 am (UTC)
I think now I'll write to Bloomsbury. :)
2010-01-19 03:02 am (UTC)
2010-01-19 03:35 am (UTC)
(Anonymous)
2010-01-19 04:20 am (UTC)
It's really a splendid book, one I enjoyed quite a bit, but man, this irritates me. I've been making a point of seeking out books featuring protagonists of color, like this and Malinda Lo's Ash and Sharon Shinn's Gateway (which hides its Chinese protagonist behind a parasol on the cover!) but if you go by the cover alone, it can be hard to find them sometimes...
Sigh.
2010-01-19 04:21 am (UTC)
2010-01-19 04:22 am (UTC)
2010-01-19 04:23 am (UTC)
this is the letter I sent
2010-01-19 04:32 am (UTC)
I find the cover art for Magic Under Glass to be completely inappropriate, in that it uses a white girl to represent a Far Eastern heroine. It sends a horrible message of (literal) erasure of readers and authors of color.
It also ups the chances of the book being missed by the many readers, teachers and librarians who are actively seeking works that star heroes and heroines beyond the pale.
And if the cover is justified on the grounds of appealing to an audience who wouldn't otherwise pick it up, doesn't that beg the question? Assuming there really are still a significant number of readers who can only tolerate a white heroine (and that they wouldn't be more than replaced by new readers who previously thought fantasy was a white only genre), aren't they going to return the book in droves once they actually start to read it? And resent the bait and switch?
After the Liar debacle I would have thought your company would have learned its lesson about lightening your leading ladies, but maybe this one was already in the pipeline? I hope so, and that later titles will not persist, because in 2010, this is just embarrassing.
I hate to judge a book by its cover, especially when I know how little say an author has in such selections, but there's a limit to the number of chances I will give any brand before I take my time and money someplace more trustworthy.
Sincerely,
[redacted]
2010-01-19 04:32 am (UTC)
2010-01-19 04:36 am (UTC)
2010-01-19 04:55 am (UTC)
2010-01-19 04:59 am (UTC)
Not surprised, but... *tears hair out anyway*
Thank you for sending them an awesome letter. I will do something once I can manage more than incoherent rage.
2010-01-19 05:04 am (UTC)
2010-01-19 05:06 am (UTC)
2010-01-19 05:11 am (UTC)
2010-01-19 06:50 am (UTC)
2010-01-19 07:48 am (UTC)
2010-01-19 03:37 pm (UTC)
2010-01-19 12:12 pm (UTC)
I spoke to one of their booth reps (they *do* remember what happened with Liar, though this particular rep didn't realize the protagonist of "MUG" was also non-Caucasian) and she promised to raise the issue up the food chain.
2010-01-19 03:50 pm (UTC)
2010-01-21 08:00 pm (UTC)