I learned about a practice known as "Whitewashing" from Sarah Pritchard, children's buyer for Left Bank Books here in the Central West End.
Major publishers like Bloomsbury USA and Little Brown Company change the color of characters illustrated in their books to white for the cover. Publishers claim that when a person of color, unless well known, is on the cover, it cuts down on book sales. I saw one book with a bus load of all white children on its cover. Inside the book there were illustrations of children of all colors.
This is an insidious, common practice by some publishers that blurs our understanding of children and people of color in our community, if not the world. I signed the store's petition to have publishers stop this practice even as I wondered, do readers notice? Do we even care? Or do we find it more comfortable to live and read about colors we know?
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