http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10098595/Black-characters-put-parents-off-books-new-Childrens-Laureate-says.html
Yes they have chosen a black person as the new Children's Laureate, and straight away she has brought race into play.
/// Parents can be put off from buying a book with a black character on the front cover, Malorie Blackman, the new Children’s Laureate, has said. ///
/// The multi-award-winning Noughts & Crosses was Blackman’s first literary foray into issues of race and ethnic identity and was inspired by her anger about the death of Stephen Lawrence and his family’s treatment by the police. ///
Why can't they just get on with things instead of constantly causing diversions?
/// Blackman, a London-born author whose parents came to Britain from Barbados, said there was a distinct lack of black and Asian children in picture books. ///
It would seem that there is also a distinct lack of Chinese children in picture books, and before some pedantic reminds me that Chinese are Asian, we all know that they are not generally referred to as Asians.
Wasn't her novel series Noughts and Crosses, about the Crossers who were the Africans, the Noughts who were the Europeans, and the Crossers made slaves of the Noughts?
If a white author was to write such a book today, it would never get published.