To think if you find a book this bad, best just not to read it?

[DemiColon]

I am just flummoxed by the changes Penguin publishing house have made to Roald Dhal's books.

I know not everyone likes them, and I really would very rarely change anything in a book, so that is my general approach, but I am shocked with what they have done with his stories:

"Mrs Twit’s “fearful ugliness” is cut to “ugliness”. The words “black” and “white” have been removed: characters no longer turn “white with fear” and the BFG cannot wear a black cloak.

The Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach have become Cloud-People. Matilda reads Jane Austen rather than Rudyard Kipling, and a witch posing as “a cashier in a supermarket” now works as “a top scientist”.

nationalpost.com/news/world/oompa-loompas-no-longer-tiny-sensitivity-readers-take-the-gnarl-out-of-dahl

Report me too please. I have two sons and two grandsons. Nowt inclusive about us!

I find the erasure of recent social history absolutely chilling. The present is informed by the past. How will people learn any sense of context if we pretend to them we're living in some sort of socially unchanging bubble?

I checked my calendar, no it's not April 1st.

There was a rather famous man in the early 20th century who liked to tell people how to think, who were the good people who were the bad people, and what books could and couldn't be read. Struggling to remember his name...

I'd be fine with antisemitism or racism being removed from children's books.
I think that's massively different to removing the word ugly, or the phrase "turned white with fear" which I genuinely don't see even a tiny problem with. I also don't really see why describing someone as "enormous" is any better than "fat".

That's so interesting to read because our fantastic mr fox book doesn't say daughter/son it's all child. Completely gender neutral. The pictures had 3 boys and a girl but I couldn't find one reference in the text.

The Ministry of Truth

The world has gone mad!!

It should not be allowed.

The books are 'of their time', we shouldn't be changing the Authors words.

there are plenty of authors to write stories with current views.

in time people will look at these wondering WTAF we were thinking.

They shouldn't be altering our cultural history, to suit current narrative

Look up Thomas Bowdler.

Nothing new to see here.

I guess the difference there is that Austen was herself railing against the misogyny of the day, and those attitudes, which she often wrote into characters that she then skewered in some way. For example, you're not meant to think the vicar from P&P (can't remember his name!) was representative of the author's views. With RD, he's not ridiculing or satirising those attitudes, or trying to highlight them as negative - those are apparently his views.

How depressingly dystopian. Thanks for the heads up to start looking for older editions.

Please don't let them come for Just William

A witch posing as a cashier in a supermarket is creepy because it makes you look at people you meet every day in a different way… What could they be hiding? Genius writing.

A witch posing as a top scientist is not creepy because no children have met a top scientist.

Whoever made these changes has no understanding of creative writing at all.

This is exactly it

I hate it all but I hate most of all that they added a dedication into George's Marvellous Medicine. You can't add a dedication, it's absolutely outrageous.

To be fair, the full line is "whether she's working as a cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman". I'm not saying it should be changed, but it is sexist stereotyping.

Perhaps if they went through Rudyard Kiplings writings and took out all the offensive tropes, they could let Matilda read them 🤔

Reading more about this, I don't even understand what the rationale is behind some of these (others I understand the rationale even if I don't agree with it).

From the guardian article

"References to “female” characters have disappeared. Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, once a “most formidable female”, is now a “most formidable woman”."

Why??

Although his works would be quite short 😂

Yes agreed. Would also be fine with removing the glorification of Roald Dahl himself, I mean he appeared to display his antisemitism like it was a badge. I don't know anything about the Roald Dahl Museum so not sure how they deal with this.

Personally I think anti-Semitic views and sexist stereotypes should be left in, I think original works should be left intact. Walt Disney was a racist, yes there have been edits to remove overtly racist images (thinking of that centaur scene in Fantasia) but the majority of Disney's old works such as Peter Pan now have an introduction stating that the film contains racial stereotypes that can be considered offensive and that these views and depictions are not acceptable. Add these. Don't edit the works. Use them to educate future generations. If we don't learn from history we are doomed to repeat it. Erasing history means we can't learn from it.

Additionally, it's dystopian to erase certain words and, particularly, the use of the word female, to suit certain agendas.

I think it depends on the context, and the age of the children it's for. Someone on another thread mentioned an Enid blyton book with a dog called the n word. There's no benefit to the story of leaving that in, and the age of children being read that story is not old enough to understand. I wouldn't read that out to my children, or give it to them to read themselves.

Why can’t they simply add a foreword explaining that some of the phrasing and descriptions are “of their time” but not language most people would use nowadays?

They did similar to Enid blyton books. They started by changing the names of the children. I remember Fanny being removed and renamed. In the faraway series Dame Slap was changed.

What is wrong with the BFG having a black cloak ? It’s a description of what he was wearing.

'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.'

George Orwell.

This. What the fuck.