Adam Pottle’s debut children’s book was published two days ago. And he wants to make sure that you don’t buy it.
The Canadian author is asking readers to boycott his book, The Most Awesome Character in the World, because it features an illustration that has been criticized as a racial stereotype, HuffPost Canada reports.
Pottle said that he objected to an illustration of an Asian girl wearing a kimono and a double-bun hairstyle. He asked the publisher, Reycraft Books, to remove the image; they refused.
“The last couple of weeks have been enormously dispiriting,” Pottle told HuffPost. “I was very much looking forward to sharing this story about the power of imagination. Now, I feel like I’ve been robbed...I don’t want people to get the idea that this is something that I support. It makes me really uncomfortable.”
Pottle’s book follows a Deaf girl who’s dissatisfied with the children’s books she’s given and decides to create a story of her own. A reviewer for Kirkus called the book “a fun story that any young reader could enjoy” but noted that the illustration in question, by Ana Sanfelippo, “unfortunately plays into Asian stereotypes.”
On Twitter, Pottle wrote that “we cannot celebrate one culture at the expense of another.”
Hi everyone,
— Adam Pottle (@AddyPottle) September 28, 2020
Some news: a few of you know that I've been trying to stop my publisher from releasing my children's book, as I'm dissatisfied with its current state.
Today, my publisher said they won't pull the book. I said that I cannot support or promote it. They understood.
“If you haven’t ordered it, I ask that you please don’t,” he tweeted. “It’s strange to tell people not to buy my own book, but the book does not accurately reflect the world I had in mind when I first wrote the story. Thank you all for listening. I love you all.”
HuffPost reports that Reycraft Books did not respond to a request for comment.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
