Silver Phoenix

I just read a short blurb about the revamping of Cindy Pon's debut novel, Silver Phoenix. And I only have one question to pose.

What. The. Hell?

The protagonist of the story is of Chinese descent. Why in the name of all that's sane and logical, should the cover art NOT represent that? It bothers me for three reasons; the first as a writer, the second as a reader, and the third as a rational human.

1.) My novel has a female protagonist, and since it's told in first person, a female narrator. Should it be published, I'd have a real issue if someone slapped a boy on the front of it. Considering it's titled Balloon Girl, I get that it's unlikely anyone would. I also realize that authors tend not to have a lot of say in cover art, but in this case, the art is misleading. Which brings us to...

2.) I like to look at the cover of books. I do usually read the jacket flap, of course, but book covers often catch my eye and make me look further. Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't that the point of covers? If not, why aren't all covers matte black or shiny white? If the cover art isn't a representation of what lives below it, what's the point in having any art at all? If I pick up a book with highly stylized, colorful and cartoonish animals, I'm going to be pretty annoyed if it's a reprint of War and Peace. Not that I have a problem with W & P. But because that's not what I was expecting. I don't like being screwed with. In this case, it's kind of expected you're going to judge a book by it's cover. That's where the saying comes from, folks. I want to get a good idea of what I'm dealing with at a glance. Which leads to...

3.) I am a free-thinking human being. I credit everyone else with the same basic intellectual powers I have. I do not need something Americanized for me. It's called ethnocentrism, this belief that something must be appropriately "familiar" before we will purchase it. That's horseshit (as my daddy used to often say.) It's insulting to the author and it's insulting to the reading public. I have news for the people who chose to whitewash this cover--if people are turned away from the gorgeous girl on the cover because of her ethnic roots, they're not likely to be very enthused with the jacket copy. If someone chooses not to read literature written about another culture because it doesn't appeal to them, you're only adding the five seconds it takes them to read what the book is about before they have the same reaction as you believe they would have had to the cover in the first place. They're still going to put the book back. You're not moving more units. You're just annoying people by being misleading. You can't fix racism by slapping a shadowy Caucasian girl on the front of a book. And I understand that it isn't even always an issue of racism. We all have different interests in what we read. Either way, racism or preference, you're not going to magically appeal to more people by changing the cover.

If I was the author, I'd be heartbroken. From everything I've read, Silver Phoenix is a fantastic book, a book the author can be proud of. And the cover art should reflect her vision of her work.

Period.