The world’s biggest publisher of children’s titles has skipped Israel from their maps in a school book, a mother of one of the readers found out as she failed to find her motherland to show her little son, the Times of Israel reported.
“I wanted to show my son where we lived in the Middle East,
but I didn’t see Israel on the map; instead it said Jordan,”
Adina Golombek, a Jerusalem resident who moved to Israel from
Canada last year, told the newspaper.
“Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt,” published by Scholastic
Inc, is an adventure story of the Thea Sisters, five teen-aged
mice, who are invited to Egypt to participate in an archeological
excavation.
As the story takes place in the Middle East, a map is provided at
the beginning of the book. It outlines modern Egypt and its
neighboring countries – all except for Israel. While Sudan,
Libya, and Saudi Arabia can been seen in the right spots, Israel
is fully covered by Jordan with the territories of both states
evenly colored in red.
A senior vice president for corporate communications at
Scholastic, Kyle Good, has told the Times of Israel that the
company is now trying to find out if “this will be
corrected” and “the timing of reprints”.
“The Geronimo Stilton series is published in Italy and
Scholastic translates the books for the US audience,” Good
said in an emailed comment. “I’m awaiting a response from the
editorial team regarding the timing of reprints and whether this
will be corrected. I will get back to you as soon as I have their
response.”
Scholastic, founded in Pennsylvania in 1920, is the world’s
largest publishing companies known for publishing educational
materials for children, parents, schools and teachers. It
distributes children’s books through its book clubs, teaching
resources and popular book fairs held inside many North American
schools as well as online.
The company has exclusive publishing rights for the Harry Potter
series in the United States.
It is not the first time Israel has not been found on the world’s
map.
According to a recent study, 96 percent of Palestinian school
textbooks did not mention Israel by name in their maps. At the
same time, 87 percent of Israeli school textbooks did not have
lines between Israel and the Palestinian Territories, or did not
name it at all.
Another similar Israel-missing case, involved Apple and its
much-anticipated operating system, iOS 7, presented in September.
Shortly after release, it was revealed that the new world clock
options on the iOS 7 listed Jerusalem without a country.