Comments on: Whitewashing Strikes Again? The Case of White Cat by Holly Black

By: Forever Young Adult, a community for adult YA readers to find book reviews, movie reviews, book news, film news and gossip about new and upcoming teen books and movies.

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:42:55 +0000

[...] be honest, this cover was initially a big turn off for me. There was a bit of a whitewashing brouhaha when the cover image was first released. But since my priorities are always in the wrong place, my [...]

By: beth

beth — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:34:34 +0000

This was such a well done post. I love it. I’m so glad you approached the topic so professionally. Thank you!

By: Doret

Doret — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:47:56 +0000

I have been offline for a bit, so this is the first time I am hearing this.

My first thought was say it ain’t so, not Simon and Schuster.

I am happy they quickly made a change. I won’t hold this against S&S because they have a great track record of covers with kids of color.
They also publish a lot of authors of color.

Thanks so much for this post.

By: World Wide Wednesday: Black Prisms & White Cats | Fantasy Literature's Fantasy Book Reviews

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:26:11 +0000

[...] whitewashing with Holly Black’s latest book The White Cat, and did a sensitive and in-depth analysis to see whether they agreed. I urge you to read up on this subject – it is something The Book [...]

By: Ari

Ari — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:28:58 +0000

I saw this at Gal Novelty and I got sad but I was also hopeful that it was a misunderstanding because simon & Schuster does a great job with POC covers. I was feeling too down to post about this and this post makes me feel better. Thank you for researching this topic!

I agree that this is a different issue since the character’s cultural background is never explicityl stated (based on your post. I haven’t read the book. I do love the cover though). The final version is better and I think I will do a post later in the week about this cover and some others but I’m more calm about this one than MUG and Liar.

@Paulo-I disagree, I firmly believe that a publishing company can be racist. But everyone has already said what I would have said anyway so I’ll leave it that. Please get your facts straight and do some research about racisim.

@Diana-I don’t think this is a whitewashed cover but as others have stated I don’t think people are looking for problems either. I never open a book saying ‘hmm let me see if this cover has been whitewashed’ (although now I can be wary), but I think most people will do careful research and as we see from the bookSmugglers post, they read the whole book and took careful notes.

By: Akin

Akin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:43:08 +0000

Sorry, I spelt Holly as Holy. Mistake.

By: Akin

Akin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:42:32 +0000

@ Diana.
Holy said: “You are absolutely correct. The lighting at the shoot and the desaturation done to the photo made the model look very pale on the cover of the ARC. Cassel looks browner and more like himself on the final.”

So you don’t think I made that up, here’s a link: http://blackholly.livejournal.com/134301.html?thread=6516125#t6516125

By: Erika (Jawas Read, Too)

Erika (Jawas Read, Too) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:52:47 +0000

I finally got around to reading this post! It was very well thought-out and congrats to you for studying the book so closely to discover the truth. I’m also impressed (and glad) you went the extra mile and researched what Holly Black had to say about it as well as Sarah Rees Brennan! Great blog post and I can’t wait until this one comes out to read it.

By: Diana Peterfreund

Diana Peterfreund — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:25:46 +0000

Akin, where does she say that?

By: Danielle

Danielle — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:02:25 +0000

Haha, owned.