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.

*hard work they've put in

Downe House is basically Eton for girls.

This person is incredibly, astonishingly privileged. How she thinks she can go about lecturing others on what they should think or do is astonishing, and quite frankly unbelievably offensive.

This is not being on the right side of history. This is being a nasty, featherbedded, unjustly overprivileged bully of a woman who punches down from a position of great advantage and luxury.

In fairness, many of the authors that ASH publishing represent are also young Muslim women, so I wouldn't assume that this is necessarily racially motivated. And I'm not sure that their trans activism is necessarily relevant. What it does show is highly unprofessional and ungracious conduct by some petty woman who doesn't like to lose. And it will almost certainly back fire on her.

*22:07Tiddlesthecat

In fairness, many of the authors that ASH publishing represent are also young Muslim women*

Oh yes, she's well known for her white saviourism. I have no problem whatsoever with the amplification of minority voices, but it is to boost her own ego and frankly comes across as tokenism.

And as is abundantly clear, she doesn't actually give a fuck about the wrong sort of observant Muslim woman.

@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.

On that subject, I saw one of Alice S-H's friends respond with the following:

Super sorry to hear that Alice but it just means they're threatened by the amazingly important good stuff you do.

Yes, amending an image and reposting it on twitter is amazingly important.

Onjali Raúf, she who has founded two NGOs, and donates 50% of her income from her biggest seller to one of those organisations, must quail at the magnitude of such humanitarian feats.

I think that is what they call "projection".

@Tiddlesthecat

In fairness, many of the authors that ASH publishing represent are also young Muslim women, so I wouldn't assume that this is necessarily racially motivated. And I'm not sure that their trans activism is necessarily relevant. What it does show is highly unprofessional and ungracious conduct by some petty woman who doesn't like to lose. And it will almost certainly back fire on her.

I applaud your willingness to think the best of her, but would you take anyone seriously if they posted "I'm not racist, I have black friends" for themselves?

I've not had the (dis)pleasure of meeting Alice S-H, but I've encountered a few people who cultivated people from ethnic minorities as a sort of talisman against accusations of racism, and then dropped their protegées like a stone if they stopped performing the gratitude to Lady/Lord Bountiful.

Such people always demonstrate in their behaviour that they don't see People Not Like Them as full equals. If the token working class people/ethnic minority people voice the wrong kind of opinion, they quickly find out that the respect they received from Lady/Lord Bountiful and friends was purely conditional.

This ongoing affair reminds me a lot of that dynamic.

It’s not racially motivated the stupid crack pot dropped her brains out of her arsehole as she hurried to affirm blokes squeaking about being women. Fuck them kids though. Lambeth? I think I could get a decent bet at Ladbrokes about their ethnicity. Ridiculous.

@FlyingUnicornWings

It’s shot the book straight up the charts!

You can tell that this lot didn't pay attention to the messages in Harry Potter.

“If she could have done one thing to make absolutely sure that every single person in this school will read your interview, it was banning it!”

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

It's slightly worrying that a literary agent doesn't seem to know what "procrastinating" means. It makes no sense in that sentence.

@Gumbomambo

It’s not racially motivated the stupid crack pot dropped her brains out of her arsehole as she hurried to affirm blokes squeaking about being women. Fuck them kids though. Lambeth? I think I could get a decent bet at Ladbrokes about their ethnicity. Ridiculous.

I agree. People like this aren't being racist, they just don't care.

I agree. People like this aren't being racist, they just don't care.

Right, but this is the natural social consequence of a lot of the Woke bollocks.

A lot of nasty people who aren't primarily motivated by racism, or sexism, but more just by the chance to be unpleasant to people, end up functionally racist and sexist, because that's what Woke lets you be. It's a way for middle-class twats to purity-spiral each other over luxury beliefs that hurt women and minorities.

And this also ends up as a displacement activity from any real measures - rather than people who care about women or minorities (or children!) you get these nasty back-stabbers into position who don't care.

You're appointing Soviet-style political commissars into roles that would be better served by someone who has a calling to the role, rather than the politics. You really do get that sense that these people are far more enthusiastic about the back-stabbing than their nominal rule.

Just ordered the book. Thank you

Also just ordered the book. thank you and to whoever posted the youtube video & transcript of Onjali's speech - amazing. Everyone needs to hear it!

@KimikosNightmare

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

It's slightly worrying that a literary agent doesn't seem to know what "procrastinating" means. It makes no sense in that sentence.

I assumed it meant she was going to dick around editing a picture for lols rather than do actual work.

@KimikosNightmare

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

It's slightly worrying that a literary agent doesn't seem to know what "procrastinating" means. It makes no sense in that sentence.

I took it to mean that she was procrastinating from doing her work by instead fiddling about editing images.

I decided not just to order the book for my niece but to download and read it too and it's really good . I hated a lot of kids literature that was promoted for my kids - tracey beaker was grim and David Wallliams just so badly written but this was a joy to read and very moving .

Snap!

The Boy at the Back of the Class is a wonderful book - the bit with the pomegranate made me weep. I need to catch up on Onjali Rauf’s other books too. Really disappointed by the author of …Mangoes joining in with her loathsome agent’s behaviour, as I loved that book too - really moving and the setting was so evocative.

I hate the way so much of children’s publishing (well, publishing in general but I think it’s particularly rife in children’s) has jumped on the TRA bandwagon. ‘Be kind’ was a laudable idea but it’s spiralled into something really ugly.

Just ordered a copy of The Boy at the Back of the Class on Amazon as part of the 2 for £7 offer with another book for DS.

Very happy to see it's ranking so high on the charts right now.

I’ve just ordered four of her books, three of them recommended on here - thank you. I will really enjoy receiving them. If Onjali Rauf is reading these comments - thank you for your work

As for the other person - I can’t be bothered to remember her name - shame on you for your attempts at sabotage. Two words I hope will become your fate: hoisted, petard

‘Be kind’ was a laudable idea but it’s spiralled into something really ugly.

In practice it inevitably boils down to "submit to those more privileged than you or with power over you".

The strong can demand "kindness". The weak cannot.

I recall better rules like "treat others as you would want them to treat you". That's pretty fool-proof.

Unlike "treat others as they want to be treated", which has got a flaw you could drive a truck through.

Quite, NecessaryScene

Isn't Rachel Rooney the original cancelled children's author?
She has been bullied out of writing books. Which is awful. We love her books. Keep shining a light on this bullying behaviour.

@NoToLandfill

Isn't Rachel Rooney the original cancelled children's author? She has been bullied out of writing books. Which is awful. We love her books. Keep shining a light on this bullying behaviour.

It’s such a shame that Rachel Rooney got bullied out.

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when Juno Dawson said ‘my body belongs to me’ in the recent Guardian series ‘Living in a Woman’s body’. It’s ok, stunning and brave when JD says this, but Rachel Rooney is denounced and hounded out of publishing for a beautiful book called ‘My Body Is Me’?!

(Obviously it’s telling that JD sees their body as something they control and shape, not as something intrinsic to your life. I can’t help but wonder how JD will cope with ageing or if JD has an illness that is outside their agency to control. Women tend to know that our bodies do in fact shape how we live, and I guess JD doesn’t, for obvious reasons).

Yes, also Gillian Philip.

'My journey towards driving a lorry came after many successful years as an author, part of a team writing animal fantasy novels for children, when I was dropped by my publishing company overnight for supporting J K Rowling.

Simply, I had added the hashtag #IStandWithJKRowling to my Twitter handle in response to the author's essay revealing she was a domestic abuse survivor and arguing that letting self-identifying transwomen into single-sex spaces could be a danger to females.

A hate mob descended on my social media accounts, encouraging people to contact my publisher to register their horror and call for me to be axed. It clearly worked: by the next morning I had been summarily fired.'

www.express.co.uk/entertainment/books/1493963/children-author-lorry-driver-gillian-philip