Jamie Oliver Withdraws Kids’ Book Offensive to Indigenous Australians

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s second attempt to join a fast-growing number of celebrities-turned-children’s-book-authors has met a major roadblock. His publisher, Penguin Random House UK, announced that it will withdraw all copies of his 400-page fantasy novel “Billy and the Epic Escape” for primary school-age children after it was slated for its insensitivity to Aboriginal Australians who are members of the “Stolen Generation”—people forcibly removed from their parents and communities and sent to live with white foster families. Although set mostly in England, part of the plot features an Indigenous girl living in a community near Alice Springs who is abducted by the book’s villain. Indigenous leaders said it perpetuates racist stereotypes and is “trivialising complex and painful histories.”...