Saturday, July 25, 2009

inexcusable

I tried to write a post about the racist action taken by Bloomsbury in regards to the cover of the upcoming YA book Liar by Justine Larbalestier. I don't write well when I'm pissed off. Thankfully, Renay does. Please go read these posts, if you haven't already.

5 comments:

Ana S. said...

Just finished writing my Sunday Salon post for tomorrow about this. It's mostly made out of links too, though, because everyone has already said what I'd like to better than I could.

It really, really bothered me that they didn't even admit they had messed up. You know, the same thing happened with the covers of Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea books back in the early 70's. Almost four decades later, here we are, still doing the same crap :S

Debi said...

Nymeth,
I know what you mean...how hard would it have been to admit they screwed up. Instead it's all excuses. No excuse is ever going to cut it. How could someone making this decision not realize it was racist...I can see no other way to view it.
I can't wait to read your post!

Amanda said...

It's really disgusting. There's just no excuse.

Staci said...

Even Larbalestier is upset. “I love my publisher,” she said. “[But] I never wanted this cover. I made it clear I didn’t want a white girl’s face. Having this cover on the front is undermining the book that I wrote.”
The author didn't want this cover but they (publishers) thought they knew more about this book than her? You've got to be kidding me. Next they'll be telling Walter Dean Myers that Monster wasn't really a story about a young African-American boy writing his story like a movie script...it was all pretend and he was really white, so that's why the front cover has a picture of a white boy on it!! This is blatant!!!

Stephanie said...

I know. I was going to do a post, but I just couldn't get the words out. Made me want to scream. Thankfully, as you said, I just let Renay do it for me!