As mentioned in the 12 June post, normally a book about anybody and anything controversial - the more in the news the better - gets snapped up by the chain bookstores like hot cakes. The book above by Ian Wishhart about the fatal abuse of two young Maori twins, however, isn't going to be stocked by The Warehouse and Paper Plus, because of a threatened boycott by a group of 38,000 who signed up to a Facebook page to protest it.
The Warehouse in the past has cited "family values" as an excuse for not stocking something when all they really mean is that they think it won't sell as many copies as the latest book about some celebrity scandal. But in this case they are clearly worried about the effect of protesters outside their stores, even if these have promised to be silent and unobstructive.
Are these protestors going too far? We think so. The author and his motivation should be scrutinised and questioned in the civilised way; retailers should be left alone. No, we aren't stocking it either, simply because we stock upmarket books and not chain bookstore fodder.
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