Jamie Oliver pulls children's book after complaints from Indigenous Australians

Celebrity cook Jamie Oliver has pulled his caller children's publication from the shelves aft complaints that it stereotyped Indigenous Australians.

The 400-page phantasy caller Billy and the Epic Escape, which was published earlier this year, features an Aboriginal miss with mystical powers surviving successful foster attraction who is abducted from her location successful cardinal Australia.

Some First Nations leaders person called the publication "offensive", saying it contains connection errors and contributes to the "erasure, trivialisation, and stereotyping of First Nations peoples and experiences".

Oliver - who is presently successful Australia promoting his newest cookbook - has apologised and said helium is "devastated" to person caused hurt.

"It was ne'er my volition to misinterpret this profoundly achy issue," helium said successful a statement.

The book's publisher, Penguin Random House UK, said Oliver had requested Indigenous Australians beryllium consulted implicit the book, but an "editorial oversight" meant that did not happen.

Among the complaints is that the quality is fixed the quality to work people’s minds and pass with animals and plants due to the fact that "that’s the Indigenous way", which Sharon Davis from the nationalist First Nations' acquisition assemblage said reduces "complex and divers content systems" to "magic".

The miss is besides astatine the centre of an abduction crippled - thing assemblage person Sue-Anne Hunter called a "particularly insensitive choice", fixed the "painful humanities context" of the Stolen Generations. For decades successful Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were removed from their families arsenic portion of an assimilation argumentation from successive governments.

The girl, who is from Mparntwe oregon Alice Springs, besides uses vocabulary from the Gamilaraay radical of NSW and Queensland, which Ms Davis said showed "complete disregard for the immense differences among First Nations languages, cultures, and practices".

"There is nary abstraction successful Australian publishing (or elsewhere) for our stories to beryllium told done a assemblage lens, by authors who person small if immoderate transportation to the radical and spot they are penning about," Dr Anita Heiss, a Wiradyuri writer and steadfast told the Guardian Australia.

Oliver said helium and his publishers had decided to retreat the publication from merchantability astir the world.

A connection from Penguin Random House UK added: "It is wide that our publishing standards fell abbreviated connected this occasion, and we indispensable larn from that."