How trans activists in publishing hijacked a children's book competition to pursue a personal vendetta

[PurgatoryOfPotholes]

The Phoenix Book Award is an initiative to encourage reading amongst children of the borough of Lambeth, London, launched in 2007. Back in 2017, it described itself as This exciting South London based Book Prize targets Year 5, 6, 7 and 8 pupils in Lambeth, encouraging them to read through the transition years. Phoenix is a unique book prize as students are involved in every stage of the award; from picking the shortlist, to shadowing the award and then finally voting for their favourite. It is open to all schools in the Lambeth area.

This year it's "judged by children from Years 6, 7 & 8 in Lambeth."

Children at participating schools read the books from a long-list (a very long list: as many as 32 books!) over a period of months, and whittle it down to from there. It sounds like an absolutely amazing concept for generating enthusiasm about reading.

Let's hear from the adults who do the paperwork for it:
After a break due to the pandemic we are delighted to announce that the Lambeth #PhoenixBookAward is returning for 2022!

This year, children were asked to nominate books that helped them get through lockdown. The result is a fantastic, diverse, and hugely competetive shortlist.

twitter.com/LambethPhoenix/status/1496789801718059011?s=20&t=F1f0NO5YFo712FQS40-3-w

Sounds lovely, right?

Yesterday, the twitter account for the prize posted the shortlist:

Boy in the Tower by Polly Ho-Yen
When Life Gives You Mangoes by Kereen Getten
The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell
The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Raúf

twitter.com/LambethPhoenix/status/1496791630476722184?s=20&t=aQmwjEpxiId-FatE21miAw

(Now another round of voting begins, and we'll know the winner on the 12th May 2022!)

This was accompanied by a little graphic showing the shortlist.

And that's where this wonderful heartwarming story of children enjoying reading went wrong.

One author's publishing agent took issue with the children of Lambeth having shortlisted another author with whom she disagreed, and decided to falsify that graphic to remove any record that Onjali Raúf and her book The Boy at the Back of the Class had been shortlisted by the children of Lambeth. Then she tweeted her false version from the business twitter of the literary agency she runs, for other people to unknowingly circulate.

You're probably wondering how we can know this. Well, we know, because she boasted about doing exactly that from her personal twitter account.

Transcript for those using a screenreader

Tweet 1 from Agent: Am I petty enough and procrastinating enough to amend a shortlist image to take out the shortlisted terf. Probably.

Tweet 2 from Agent: Turns out I am.

If you go here, you can read the incredible thread from Gillian Philip explaining this mess in more detail. Gillian's the one who explained events in the first place.

twitter.com/Gillian_Philip/status/1496907435830919172?s=20&t=aQmwjEpxiId-FatE21miAw

If you are struggling to view twitter threads without an account, go here. Graham Linehan has made a version of the thread that you can scroll through without a twitter account.
grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/there-will-always-be-women-who-hate?utm_source=url

Here are some other things you should know: Onjali Raúf founded an organisation that campaigns to end modern slavery and trafficking. makingherstory.org.uk/contact/

She also founded O's Refugee Aid Team which supports refugees in Calais; in fact, 50% of the royalties from that shortlisted book, The Boy at the Back of the Class go to their projects to support refugees! Yep, this is the same book that agent is trying to suppress positive publicity for.

www.osrefugeeaidteam.org/

This is a thread of some of the books Onjali Raúf has published: twitter.com/Dora_Callisto/status/1496988662806032386?s=20&t=aQmwjEpxiId-FatE21miAw which is where I found out that children are involved in the awards process.

At this point, I can only echo Dora's thread and ask, how do you think you'd feel if you were a child who'd nominated The Boy at the Back of the Class as one of the "books that helped [you] get through lockdown"? How would you feel to find out that another shortlisted nominee's agent had edited your nomination out?

It's despicable behaviour.

I think we are already there. Children's picture books in particular are terrible.

@spacehardware

JK Rowling is a "privileged white woman" but it's worth remembering the whole she's transphobic hoo haa really blew up when a load of disgusting TRAs tried to derail her Ikabog project, which was intended to be something nice / distracting for children to do, in lockdown in the middle of a pandemic.

She might be privileged now, but unlike Alice she wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth, instead JKR overcame considerable adversity.

One author's publishing agent ... decided to falsify that graphic to remove any record that Onjali Raúf and her book The Boy at the Back of the Class had been shortlisted .... Then she tweeted her false version from the business twitter of the literary agency she runs, for other people to unknowingly circulate. ...[And] boasted about doing exactly that from her personal twitter account

This is what absolutely stuns me. She falsifies the shortlist and sends her faked shortlist round for others to circulate. And boasts about it.

So she has wronged the prize organisers, who will presumably ban her.
She has wronged the people she knowingly sent false information, who will not trust anything else they receive from her.
She deliberately wronged a Muslim woman who works for refugees, though she presumably doesn't care how bad that makes her look.

I'm not amazed by her viciousness, we see plenty of that on this subject every day.
I'm just amazed she has exposed herself to the consequences. No matter how little people care about anyone else, they don't want to look heartless, and anyone siding with her will look equally bad. What will she do for a living now that she's destroyed her reputation?

She's not expecting this to have any consequences for her. And tbh it probably won't - the people she relies on for her professional reputation will applaud her behaviour

She also wronged the children who chose Rauf's novel as a book, story and message that was dear to them.

@LilithOfEden

She also wronged the children who chose Rauf's novel as a book, story and message that was dear to them.

Don't worry, she doesn't like children.

Baffling choice of job and baffling decision to declare it publicly but she's so thick that I'm not surprised.

She's a peach.

@LilithOfEden

She also wronged the children who chose Rauf's novel as a book, story and message that was dear to them.

That's the part of it I find the most poisonous.

The tweet explaining that the children chose books that helped them get through lockdown is immediately above the one with the graphic Alice S-H took and amended. I don't see how you'd miss it, especially when your job is promoting the authors you act for. Knowing what is special about any award seems key to the role.

And she's just censored the children's opinions?

They're attending state schools in Inner London, so can safely be ignored. Never mind that ASH's author comes from a not dissimilar background in Brum.

What the?! She's a agent that specialises in books for children and she publicly declares she doesn't like children????

@SilverCatStripes

So, yes: a privileged middle class white woman decided, quite deliberately, to erase a Muslim woman who works to end human trafficking and slavery

And she thinks she’s the good guy

This sums it up perfectly. Are people really that lacking in self-awareness??

I had never heard of Onjali Raúf until this Twitter spat, she looks like a very accomplished woman, working for very worthy causes, I will be ordering her book for my 2 DC.

This book is very good too. It's about domestic violence but from the child's viewpoint. It very well done.

As an agent, Alice makes an income from the booksales of the authors she represents, yes? Is that right?

It occurs to me to wonder if Alice S-H's passion for political purity would ever extend to refusing to take money from sales to families where the children also enjoyed any of Onjali Raúf's books.

I suspect not, don't you? She'll take their families' money, while falsifying the shortlist they voted on.

She doesn't like children?

And she thought working in children's publishing was a great idea, why?

What an awful person.

twitter.com/JeanHatchet/status/1497123409033060360?t=pBJXim3QBKlBXhwVGAhQYw&s=19

Off to order the book.

My eldest has read it already, youngest hasn’t. It never harms anyone to have two copies of a book.

The Celts are the indigenous people of the UK. Those of us decended from Romans, Vikings, Saxons or Normans are just annoying Johnny-come-latelys who should be ashamed of ourselves.

The Picts might have something to say about that!

@AsTreesWalking

The Celts are the indigenous people of the UK. Those of us decended from Romans, Vikings, Saxons or Normans are just annoying Johnny-come-latelys who should be ashamed of ourselves.

Damn, I've no idea what I am.

Gaspode you're quite right, apologies!
But you get my point

"We are actively seeking voices that have historically been underrepresented, particularly with tropes that are often said to be “over done”. For example, we are not interested in stories about white able bodied WW2 evacuees but would welcome that story from a disabled, LGBTQ+ or BIPOC perspective."

Gawd. It’s a bit basic but I’d point out that there weren’t going to be many “TQ” evacuees, unless you basically make a load of stuff up in order anachronistically to imagine the past was like the present day. “Queer” evacuees? Righty-ho.

Not many “indigenous people of colour” evacuees, in the US sense, either; unless as pp have pointed out, we completely reimagine the word “indigenous” as something completely different.

I’m all for imagination, but historical inaccuracy really annoys me (I am a historian though 🤣). Didn’t we once think our children’s books should be entertaining, fun, original, historically informative or truthful, rather than thinly disguised opportunities for moralising, preaching and “relatability”? Poor kids.

The boy at the back of the class is a really good read. I enjoyed it, as did my DCs.

Removing the author from a shortlist and bragging about it is just arrogant dishonesty.

Didn't need a book, so donated to Betsy's swim fundraiser

Same here!

Still no TRAs on this thread? I am part of a network of women in real life (ReSisters), we spend a lot of time working very hard to ensure broken women get support. Real physical, financial support and my goodness this has fired the furnace. Not only has this wonderful evocative caring writer been shit upon, those children who have very little, who spent months reading books, so they could learn to critique a book, just be involved and understand how it made them feel and vote. This WOMAN (this is a feminist board), who gets up and gives desperate women and children financial support through her charity. This WOMAN is a shining star. Where I come from we say “let’s be ‘aving ya”! She hasn’t even the tits to apologise.

I obviously meant Titty Fala, with her fucking agency. Call me a bigot and I will laugh you in to the back end of next week. You awful hateful bully.

@Gumbomambo

Still no TRAs on this thread? I am part of a network of women in real life (ReSisters), we spend a lot of time working very hard to ensure broken women get support. Real physical, financial support and my goodness this has fired the furnace. Not only has this wonderful evocative caring writer been shit upon, those children who have very little, who spent months reading books, so they could learn to critique a book, just be involved and understand how it made them feel and vote. This WOMAN (this is a feminist board), who gets up and gives desperate women and children financial support through her charity. This WOMAN is a shining star. Where I come from we say “let’s be ‘aving ya”! She hasn’t even the tits to apologise.

Couldn't have said it better myself. How anyone could have taken the time to doctor that list and thought "this'll be a GREAT tweet" to herself whilst writing it up needs to have a good hard look at where she's gone wrong.

Utterly disgusting. Not only the total lack of female solidarity or understanding but for a literary agent to basically give no fucks about the choices those children have made abd the gard wirh they've put in to nominate those books.....it's unbelievable.