Imagine Edward Cullen. Now imagine Edward Cullen as a black man.

Can't do it, can you? Not because you lack imagination--but it's hard to imagine something you've probably never seen. And studies now show you've probably never seen a black character on the cover of a young adult novel. (Please, dear God, I'm not considering Twilight anything else other than a YA book. Let's not debate this.)

Last year, blogger Kate Hart created a sort of color wheel--in the literal sense--about the colors of young adult book covers. But when she dived deeper she looked into the racial color representation of the book covers...and the only thing rarer than vampires are black people.

According to Hart, a study of YA book covers from 2011 show that 1.2% of all book covers show a black person--and often that black person is situated behind a white person or has skin light enough to compete with Mariah Carey. Overall, 10% of book covers show an "ambiguous" racial character on the cover--generally tan-ish in the vein of "Is that dude Greek, Brazilian, or Chinese?"

But are you black? The book publishing industry would like you to know disabled people are less represented than you are, to the extent of.................zero percent. That's right, folks--disabilities don't exist in the land of young adult fiction. It's a wonderful land of Xanadu! Young adult book covers are like a Benny Hinn revival healing. We're all healed!!

Healed, except for that whole racial and disability bias we have going on.



Oh, by the way---that cover of "Head Games" up above? That qualifies as a black character on the cover of a young adult novel. Where is that black man, you say? He's one of the faint, distant, tiny characters playing basketball in the background. Powerful, in-your-face representation of black America if I've ever seen it.