Amazon Reveals the Best-Selling New Releases of 2016
The machinery of and inherent biases in the publishing industry and the reading community are never more apparent than in the best-selling new releases list. The recipe for a best-seller is a big name + a hefty marketing budget + a white author. With only one author of color on the general list and zero on the kids/YA list (but plenty of Bill O’Reilly), it’s hard not to worry about the progress we are (or aren’t) making in combating complacency and institutionalized racism in reading.
Virginia School District Pulls Classics
Accomack County Schools in Virginia have pulled To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn from their curriculum after a parent complaint about racial slurs used in the books. The parent’s biracial son told her he had a hard time getting past the slurs in his reading. I really wish parents used these moments as opportunities to discuss history, language, and context with their kids instead of insisting an entire school district be deprived of the opportunity to think critically about a text.
Upcoming Adaptation News
A few exciting adaptation bits of news for you! Elizabeth Banks has optioned Lindy West’s Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman for a TV show. West’s memoir is hilarious and necessary, and I’d love to see it on any screen. Also, Hugh Jackman will have a role in Fox 2000’s upcoming adaptation of Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Alexie himself is adapting the screenplay, which is always a vote of confidence in my book (see what I did there?).