Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has withdrawn his new children’s book from the shelves following criticisms that it perpetuated stereotypes of Indigenous Australians.
His 400-page fantasy novel, titled “Billy and the Epic Escape,” portrays an Aboriginal girl with mystical powers who lives in foster care and is kidnapped from her home in central Australia.
Leaders from First Nations have criticized the book for reinforcing “harmful stereotypes” and for oversimplifying the “complex and painful” history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children forcibly removed from their families under government assimilation policies.
Currently in Australia to promote another cookbook, Oliver has issued an apology, expressing his devastation over the unintended harm caused.
“I never meant to misrepresent such a deeply painful issue,” he stated.
Publisher Penguin Random House UK acknowledged that the consultation with Indigenous Australians, which Oliver had requested, did not occur due to an “editorial oversight.”
The book has been criticized for linguistic inaccuracies and for reducing the First Nations character, Ruby, to a stereotype.
“This superficial treatment of Ruby’s character dehumanizes her and, by extension, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” explained Sharon Davis from the educational body Natsiec.
A notable criticism concerns Ruby’s supernatural abilities to read minds and communicate with nature, mistakenly attributed to “the Indigenous way.”
Sharon Davis remarked that this simplifies “complex and diverse belief systems” into mere “magic.”
The narrative’s focus on Ruby’s abduction is particularly controversial, according to community leader Sue-Anne Hunter, because it insensitively references the historical trauma of the Stolen Generations.
During the 20th century, government policies removed tens of thousands of Indigenous children from their families to assimilate them, a practice rooted in racial ideologies, which persisted officially until the 1970s.
“The story’s flippant approach to narrating the theft of a First Nations child dangerously trivializes the ongoing trauma associated with Australia’s violent history of child removal,” Natsiec said.
They also noted that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children today are still far more likely than non-Indigenous children to be taken into foster care or similar systems.
The book inaccurately uses vocabulary specific to the Gamilaraay people of New South Wales and Queensland, even though the character hails from Mparntwe or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.
“This shows a complete disregard for the significant differences among First Nations languages, cultures, and practices,” said Sharon Davis.
Oliver and his publishers have chosen to remove the book from global sales.
Penguin Random House UK has conceded that their publishing standards were not met in this instance and emphasized the importance of learning from this error.
Natsiec has acknowledged their apologies and the “swift action” taken to withdraw the books from sale.
