Poll: Does race matter on book jackets?
Revised, current cover image
A St. Louis bookseller says she will order copies of an upcoming teen novel now that the publisher changed a controversial cover image.
Bloomsbury USA has replaced a photo of a white girl with a photo of a brown girl on the cover of “Liar” by Justine Larbalestier. The novel features a girl described as African-American. The story is called a psychological thriller that revolves around the girl’s pathological lying.
Bloomsbury’s original jacket photo of a white girl was criticized by bloggers and even the book’s author. The Australian edition of the book shows a cover with text, but no photo.
Melissa Posten, children’s book buyer for Pudd’nhead Books in Webster Groves, had said she would not order ”Liar” with its controversial cover. This week, she confirmed that she is happy to order the book with the new photo. “It’s beautiful and it more accurately reflects the girl in the story. .. I’ll absolutely be ordering it.”
Controversial cover
Posten says that publishers believe that race matters when it comes to book jackets:
”Everyone says books with people of color on the cover don’t sell. But that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.” If there are few books with people of color on the covers, then of course they don’t sell, she says.
In a statement to Publishers Weekly earlier this month, publisher Bloomsbury said: “We regret that our original creative direction for Liar—which was intended to symbolically reflect the narrator’s complex psychological makeup—has been interpreted by some as a calculated decision to mask the character’s ethnicity.” “Liar” is scheduled to go on sale Sept. 29.
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I honestly believe we have become so oversensitized to the racial issues that we are trying to apply it to everything we see. Artistic license used to be free of anyone calling it racially based but with this article and opinion of one person it has been breached never to be seen as the artist wished again.
I know racism is out there, and we do encounter it daily in many ways, but when we start to see everything through these tainted glasses, we tend to miss the abstract beauty and intentions of the original. Race will continue to be an issue as long as there is one person left to be insulted by someoneelse’s opinion of a thing. Freedom is being eroded by those trying to opress us with their opinions instead of taking everyone’s opinion into account.
The past can be learned from, but should never “color” our present or future. I think we should act as the blind man who sees everyone as equals because he doesn’t know any better.
In other words, get over it already, and let’s move on as one big family, african, asian, hispanic, european, we are all americans, and those who don’t live here are just as human as the rest of us so let’s just all get along better and forget our petty prejudices.
If the book is about an African-American, well what is the problem. After all it sort of puts a picture of the character in the mind’s eye. Let’s just solve the whole problem and make her green or purple. Scott makes an excellent point.
By the way, why would a picture of an African-American inhibit sales? That’s just plain silly.
I completely agree with Scott. Get over the race thing, already. especially here in St. Louis. I’ve lived around the world and have never seen such a fuss (angry and militant)over race. To look at the Post Dispatch you would think it was the St. Louis American. Count the black faces vs., the white ones. It doesn’t reflect the demographic. The PD is a regional paper not a North side publication and very few black people read it. Back to the topic at hand, too many images of black people are used for the sake of being PC. This does not adequately rflect the population. And I agree that a book cover with an African American will limit sales and appeal to a much, much smaller market. I am Italian American but that word Italian doesn’t preceed everything I say about myself. Time to move on people.
No I would not boycott this book because my granny always said you can’t tell a book by its cover …. however I don’t care for the title, could they change that? And I don’t really like reading about people who are pathological liars, could they change that?
Ever notice how the more things change the more they stay the same. Race relations are better, but not where they should be. And you can blame both blacks and whites for the problem. Blacks still feel discriminated against and whites are tired of it being shoved down their throats so they regurgitate it back up. The reality is the truth is in the middle.
How silly and what a waste of ink…..of course this books cover should be a reflection of the content of the text. What if there was a book on our founding fathers and the publisher decided to have only Brown skinned men in white wigs….would that make sense?
Ummmnnn . . . both of these ladies are “Women” not “Girls”. If you are going to talk about “race”, geez at least try not to be “sexist”.
It is hard to know what age the models are for these photos. But the book is definately marketed to teens. Girls under 18 are not considered “women” according to our style. So even though the models may or may not be older, they are supposed to represent girls.
you could put a purple aardvark on the cover and I’m still not buying it.