The recent changes to Roald Dahl's books for children

[Frustration]

See this Canadian article.

I can sometimes grasp why classic children's literature is altered even if I don't necessarily approve. I understand why the family of Hugh Lofting, for example, removed from the Dr. Dolittle books the African prince who is convinced the European woman he loves will return his affection if he bleaches his hair, skin and eyes.

But the things that were removed from Roald Dahl's books...

[Nealithi]

I read the article and all I am left with is, disappointment.
How long till all works are rewritten to the same generic core standard? And how is it genuinely better than the homogenization of early TV? Good, bad, let these works stand on their own and educate. I fear that this may be one of those 'not my responsibility' things though.

[stryke]

Fantastic Mr Fox was the book that made me love reading as a very young child, and is still a book that even now means a great deal to me. If I had to name the written works that meant the most to me before the age of ten it'd be easily be up there even just above the Hobbit, Mossflower, or Asterix.

I've said in the past that the Wes Anderson film was a desecration, and I know I'm seriously in the minority in that given the sheer number of people who will rave about how great that adaptation is.

As such I don't have the words for this. Just gets me down.

[hammerofglass]

Gods, just do the Disney thing and put a disclaimer at the beginning if you're embarrassed at the old content. This is cowardly. And petty.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I scanned the article for the BFG and it looks like I’m in the clear.

[ProfessorDetective]

Gods, just do the Disney thing and put a disclaimer at the beginning if you're embarrassed at the old content. This is cowardly. And petty.

That would be my approach. "Gone with the Wind" it.

[Frustration]

I scanned the article for the BFG and it looks like I’m in the clear.

Other articles have been more specific about the changes to the BFG.

It hasn't been unscathed by any means.

[Al-1701]

The thing is, when Dr. Seuss's estate decided to discontinue six minor books from print, it was easily understandable. They are (and frankly were) inappropriate, and Seuss would probably agree that it would be best to allow them to locked in the vault of history if he was still alive.

Dahl's estate has the problem they can't just discontinue his problematic books because his prejudices and vivid descriptions based on them is a foundation of his writing. And not only are they editing his books, but they're doing it in the most artlessly way possible. I can't help but feel like this is being done to troll the "woke crowd" in how badly it's being handled.

I'm personally against changing things. It smacks of 1984 where they rewrote humanity to suit the Party. Dahl needs to be read as is, maybe if an disclaimer of what kind of worldview you will be getting into. For one thing, we can't pretend hateful people don't exist.

[clearspira]

They've backpeddled already. Apprantly they've ''listened to the debate''. Which is management speak for ''When the King, the Queen Consort and the Prime Minister are objecting to this as well as prominant figures from every side of the political spectrum, maybe we should have ignored those five people on Twitter.''

My conspiracy theory though is that this was all a publicity ploy. Some of these changes were just a little too... odd. Such as deeming a black tractor to be racist because its black(!), or removing the word ''fat'' but keeping the word ''enormous'' which is basically the exact same thing, or changing ''ugly'' to ''beastly'' which again is basically the same thing.

And it worked. Their sales figures shot up this week as Dahl fans panic bought the old books and we are all talking about it.

[Frustration]

Well, since I'll never buy a Penguin book again, it was a pretty costly stunt if so.