A book on Palestine for young readers was pulled at Penguin Random House just before its scheduled release, following editorial disputes between the publisher and the book’s Palestinian American authors over their account of Palestinian history. In November 2024, Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House, signed the book deal with Alana Hadid, a philanthropist, activist and older sister of models Bella and Gigi, and Jenan Matari, an author and communications strategist. The book was promoted for release in September this year.
The authors, both influential social media commentators, drafted a manuscript about the history of Palestine, Israeli occupation, Palestinian resistance, and the diaspora, interwoven with references to their own families’ stories of displacement. But the writers withdrew their book after objecting to edits by Random House that they said sanitized and misrepresented their views, and which they said were introduced after they thought the book had been finalized. A Random House spokesperson said the process “followed our standard bookmaking procedures”, and that the publisher ultimately supported the authors’ decision to pull the book.
Displacement and the Palestinian American Story would have been the eighth installment in Random House’s Race to the Truth series, an ongoing collection of nonfiction books for youth ages 10 to 13. The books aimed to provide the “true story of American history”, written by members of marginalized groups telling the histories of their peoples. A co-creator of the project said she objected to the treatment of Displacement and would not be pursuing future installments in the series with the publisher.
The writers’ manuscript argued that people under “colonial domination” have the “right to resist”, but Random House urged them to incorporate arguments that the attacks that day violated international law. At an impasse, the authors withdrew their book in early September. The authors now plan to release it through Interlink Books, a Palestinian-owned US publisher.
Random House Children’s Books has other forthcoming books on Palestine, the spokesperson said, writing: “We remain committed to bringing the Palestinian perspective to young readers.” The spokesperson also said another Race to the Truth book remained on track for 2028 publication. The dispute over the book comes amid disproportionate scrutiny and censorship of work by and on behalf of Palestinians. The conflict also laid bare the wide gap between narratives around 7 October, one that could not be bridged in a book to be distributed by a mainstream publisher.
But decolonial history is supposed to make you uncomfortable.” The Race to the Truth series was conceived by Saira Rao and Regina Jackson, founders of Race2Dinner, a program launched in 2019 to facilitate conversations with white women about racism. In 2020, Rao and Jackson sold a book called White Women to Penguin Random House, which became a bestseller, then in 2021 sold the Race to the Truth children’s series to the publishing house. Random House has since published books in the series on slavery, the colonization of the Wampanoag people, the exclusion of Chinese Americans, Mexican American history, and the forced assimilation of Indigenous youth.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
