Animorphs, a highly popular kids' book series from the late 90's, is being given an updated rerelease starting this May. The new cover models for the characters aren't anything special, but they're decent; Jake is inexplicably blond, Tobias looks more like a punk kid than a shy bully magnet, and Rachel looks too old, but they could be worse. But then, there's Marco.
For the record, this is what Marco's old cover model looked like in his first appearance. (He later got a haircut, but remained Hispanic.) Here's the cast of the Animorphs TV series -- which had issues of its own, but they at least cast a Hispanic actor, Boris Cabrera, as Marco.
Now, it's entirely possible that the new model might be part Latino; ethnicity isn't always obvious at first glance. And it's true that Marco, the character, is half-white. But it's stated repeatedly in the series that he takes after his Hispanic mother much more than his white father, and he's identified as Hispanic only slightly less often than Cassie is identified as black. This issue is currently being discussed in the
animorphs community, and a petition is up here for people to sign.I cannot even put into words how much this bothers me. Felt I should share.