Jamie Oliver's children's book removed from shelves for 'insensitive' portrayals of Indigenous Australians

[Coloroscopio]

Jamie Oliver might be a whiz in the kitchen, but it seems he’s had to swallow a bitter pill when it comes to his latest children’s book. The celebrity chef has decided to pull Billy and the Epic Escape from shelves after facing backlash for its portrayal of Indigenous Australian people, which critics have called culturally insensitive and harmful.

 

The 400-page fantasy novel follows an Aboriginal girl named Ruby, who possesses mystical powers and lives in foster care. The plot centers around her abduction from her home in central Australia, a storyline that First Nations leaders have argued trivializes the painful history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being forcibly removed from their families under government assimilation policies.

 

 

Critics have also pointed out several language inaccuracies, noting that Ruby, who is from Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, uses words from the Gamilaraay language of New South Wales and Queensland.

 

This, they say, shows a lack of understanding and “complete disregard for the vast differences among First Nations languages, cultures, and practices,” as noted by Sharon Davis, CEO of the First Nations educational body, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission (NATSIEC).

 

 

Davis further criticized Ruby's portrayal, arguing that the character’s ability to read minds and communicate with animals was a simplistic reduction of "complex and diverse belief systems" to mere “magic.” This treatment, Davis said, "dehumanizes" both the character and, by extension, Indigenous Australians as a whole.

 

The choice to make Ruby the key figure in an abduction plot has also been highlighted as particularly problematic, given the historical trauma associated with Australia’s Stolen Generations—a period during the 20th century when tens of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their families in an attempt to assimilate them into white society.

 

 

In a statement, NATSIEC expressed that the book’s approach to narrating the removal of a First Nations child “dangerously trivializes” the pervasive trauma tied to Australia’s history of child removal policies. Community leader Sue-Anne Hunter echoed these sentiments, calling the abduction storyline “particularly insensitive” given the enduring pain felt by many Indigenous families.

 

Oliver, who happened to be in Australia promoting a new cookbook at the time, has publicly apologized, stating he is “devastated” to have caused any hurt and stressing that it was never his intention to misrepresent or trivialize such a deeply painful issue.

 

Alongside his collaborators at Penguin Random House UK, Oliver decided to withdraw the book from sale. The publishing house also acknowledged that an “editorial oversight” had prevented a consultation with Indigenous Australians, and added that its publishing standards had "fallen short" on this occasion, vowing to learn from the experience.

 

• https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg4l3yz76neo 
• https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/11/books/jamie-oliver-book-australia.html 
• https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/nov/10/jamie-oliver-pulls-childrens-book-from-shelves-after-criticism-for-stereotyping-indigenous-australians-ntwnfb 
• https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/11/11/jamie-oliver-childrens-book-offensive-indigenous-australians/ 

 

Images: Maria Kmecova | Dreamstime.com and Penguin Random House