Enid Blyton - what's been edited out/changed??

Ignoring the dog’s name in Mr Galliano’s Circus (my DD read over my shoulder when I was reading from a first edition, and asked why I’d read it like that when it began with N, not Tr), the racism was pretty awful in the Whatever of Adventure books. Newer editions have tried to mitigate this (off the top of my head an example of this is changing Jo-Jo to Joe in the Island of Adventure, and omitting the racist descriptions of him).

I did have a friend who read The Wishing Chair to her children, and called the pixie Chinny. She explained to her DC there was a silent K, and the pixie was called this because he had a big chin!.

Yes I think people really underestimate the casual racism and antisemitism of their favorite books: Georgette Heyer, Dorithy Sayers, Agatha Christie were all full of racist and antisemitic phrases and characters. The assumed reader was white and assumed to share those prejudices. A new, wider, multi ethnic readership is not just offended but disgusted and hurt by this language and publishers want to increase readership not decrease it.

Pretty sure the slap is original. That's what it was in my 70s copies.

Another update I used to laugh at was the by then terribly dated seventies flares on the Famous Five TV show versions of the books. Just felt out of place to a child reading in the late eighties, who knew the books were not set in the seventies.

I've found my book, and it says she shook her. its 2016 edition.

The tv show is called 'The Slap' if you look it up on bbc iplayer.

One fan page says the book was a shake but its changed to a slap for tv...

So no idea now what the original book said! Actually we might have it somewhere....

Edit - just found the old version in a draw. She slaps her!

Yep, the beginning of the book is so difficult to read now.

It might have been realistic in the situation, but I wasn't going to read to my child how a little girl was allowed to beat and insult Indian servants, and call them a whole range of offensive names. She even tries to hit her maid when she arrives in the UK , and I guess that's where the story starts to turn, but there's a lot of unsavoury stuff before that for a childrens book.

Changing names: we wouldn't say children are only able to identify with names that are more likely to be had by those of their own race, we'd say that representing diversity teaches them things. I was reading a period book, so I was fine that many of the young people had names that were old people names in my own time. And it's kind of nice when those old fashioned names that I've read in an Enid Blyton pop up as modern baby names.

Plus why deprive a child of a little snigger over the names Dick and Fanny? I laughed at them and carried on reading the book.

And yes, Darrell and co were far wealthier than my family. I still totally identified with her wanting to fit in at a new school and worrying about her schoolwork and all the normal things kids do. I hadn't really thought about the money until Mum explained that no, I wouldn't be able to go to boarding school however nice it sounded because there was no way we could afford it.

Certain racist terms and the like I feel differently about. I couldn't in all conscience imagine myself buying a friend's child (I'm childless) a book where the n word was casually thrown around like it was no big deal. And I'd be pretty annoyed if a modern version of a children's contained it with no warning.

Money changes I find infuriating. As a child I was generally reading copies that were a decade or two old from the charity shop. Sometimes they'd do things like update shillings to new pence, but not update the amount. So four shillings would become 20p. Which is just confusing because I knew four shillings was quite a lot, but 20p wouldn't go that far. Other books they'd update for inflation but as I was reading them twenty years later it didn't help!

I was fully aware that these were set in the 1950s and so I was quite happy with prices from the 50s. They made far more sense!

As a pp has pointed out, it was a performing dog in one of the Mr Galliano’s Circus books.

I don't think this argument stands up to a moment's scrutiny. They were massively popular for over four decades between decimalisation and the revisions. There are regular threads on here about women's fond memories of Malory Towers, and I'd bet less than 0.5% of those posters went to boarding school.

Harry Potter is the most successful children's book franchise and isn't remotely relatable to any of the kids reading it.

Books don't need to be relatable. They can transport us to another world.

This is on Amazon for less than £5

I thought she shook her. But other people are staying she still slaps her, so maybe it's gone back on. I don't think taking out the slap works; Darrell's temper, and her struggle to overcome it, is an important theme over the whole series. And a slap between children is hardly something that doesn't happen today. It's presented as wrong and is an opportunity for personal growth. If the shake is there I'm not sure why it's better than a slap.

This is quite amusing because, as a corporate "career woman" currently on mat leave, all my conversations with similarly-situated friends are about how much we wish we could quit our jobs and that they should teach baby-handling skills in school!

Now to go find myself a pair of egg-beater earrings as my non-breadwinner husband won't be able to afford them

Absurd

@ItsGregg I loved Mr Pinkwhistle

Big Ears is now called Mr Squeaks

Not true at all. I have a 2nd edition Treasure Island (first book) and a 1st edition Run Away (3rd book).

You're just trying to push a narrative that isn't true.

I think I agree with this. Generally I am opposed to making changes to books, and it can be appropriate to retain these as they may help children with gaining an historical sense and understanding that certain items/phrases which were common at one time are no longer used now. Anyone who wants to find out what a shilling is can just ask or Google it.

But there is possibly a case for removing a few things which are highly likely to cause offence.

I don't know though why EB's books are fair game for changing and others aren't. Nobody has ever proposed 'improving' Mansfield Park by amending the heroine's name.

And not just adult literature: how about making amendments to say the Narnia books as well? There is sexism there - the stereotypically feminine women/girl characters are openly mocked whereas the heroines are praised for the extent to which they resemble boys. To paraphrase: '(Lucy) is as good as a man, or at any rate as good as a boy. Susan is just like any other grown up woman, she's not like Lucy'. Not to mention the racism - look at how the Calormenes are depicted.

I’ve got some of the books from the 50s and he was Timmy in those books but in the more modern books he’s Timothy.

So Dicks okay but Timmy had to change to Timothy???

We've got the book I'm going to have to find it now!

What does she do instead of slap her now?

I don't think that was a good change.

Some things need changing, Agatha Christie had a book called ten little ni@@ers which was changed to 10 little Indians in American versions… it was then called And then there were none …. That was a good change. Some others are ridiculous like prudence to Pamela?! Jo to Joe … don’t agree with that personally

Well, so was I, but as a WC child, it was not pleasant, for example, to read passages where the WC Ern, Mr Goon’s nephew in the Five Find-Outers, is treated like a comic joke or pet, his manners and grammar corrected by the MC children, and everyone involved just accepting that Ern, who ‘knows his place’, naturally doesn’t have tea in the nursery/playroom with the other children, but down in the kitchen with the servants.

I can also imagine that it was unpleasant to be a black child encountering racist caricatures like Jojo, the angry, stupid, violent black manservant in The Island of Adventure, who is given to rolling his eyes and being superstitious about ghosts, and is effortlessly outwitted time and again by the children. Or the escaped black paratrooper in The Mountain of Adventure who talks about himself pityingly in the third person as a ‘poor n**r’.

If it makes you feel better, she slaps her in the tv programme and the stage show.

In the mid 80s at my private girls convent we were told to marry well and not necessarily have to work if that were possible. Quite a few families were restauranteurs where the wife and even daughters as teens didn’t work, some did. Or the wife worked re admin side. We had childcare as one gcse subject.