"Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt," which is part of Scholastic's Geronimo Stilton character (pictured) series, omitted Israel from a map of the Middle East. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) wrote a letter to Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, that asks the company to take steps to address its publication of a book containing a Middle East map without Israel.

The book, Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt, was published by Scholastic as part of the children’s series featuring the Geronimo Stilton character. Scholastic has called the omission of Israel from the map “inadvertent,” and the company confirmed that it will cease the shipment of the current edition of the book while it is being revised and reprinted.

But in its Dec. 10 letter, ZOA asked Scholastic to take additional steps to address the situation, including: “(1) investigate how this omission occurred and why; (2) suspend relations with the book’s author, illustrator and Italian publisher until the investigation is completed and those responsible are identified; (3) once the investigation is completed, terminate relations with those responsible for omitting Israel from the map; (4) ensure that Scholastic’s editors and proofreaders have the requisite experience, competence and attention to detail to prevent such errors and omissions from recurring; (5) issue accurate replacement to those who have already purchased the book omitting Israel; (6) conduct a thorough review of Scholastic’s other books to verify their accuracy, and (7) issue a public apology and a public statement reflecting all the steps that Scholastic will be taking to remedy the incident and prevent it from recurring.”