Friday, March 17, 2023

Roald Dahl's Books Censored, words removed: mothers and fathers, ugly, fat and more

Yes you read my blog post title right. Earlier this year "Go get your mothers and fathers" was changed in Roald Dahl's books to "Go get your parents." There is no way to sugar coat the recent censorship of Roald Dahl's children's books. His books have delighted readers worldwide with sales of 300,000,000 books. Titles include "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "Matilda", "James and the Giant Peach" and "The Witches." I have two co-authored books published and it is outrageous to imagine future generations going through my books and making hundreds of changes. We authors put a lot of work into each word and thought in our books. When Dahl wrote "Rudyard Kipling" in one of his children's books, that is meaningful. It is doubly outrageous to do that after an author's death.


 

Puffin Books, his publisher, have called in sensitivity readers, i.e. a cute/sly way of saying censors. Thank goodness many public figures including Salman Rushdie and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are speaking out against the censorship. I read Netflix bought the rights to his books so they are involved in this

This year the publishers made hundreds of censorship changes in Dahl's books, including removing "mothers and fathers" and changing that to "parents", and to describe Augustus Gloop the censors removed the word "fat" and changed it to "enormous."  "Cloud-men" was changed to "Cloud-people" and to describe witches "Old hags" changed to "Old crows".  A mention of Rudyard Kipling was removed and John Steinbeck substituted. What! Thus far the changes are only in the English language versions, the French publisher says they have no plans to make those changes. They did not say they never will, but at least they have no plans to do so.

Salman Rushdie tweeted "Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed." PM Sunak spoke against the Dahl censorship and said "It is important to preserve works of fiction and to not air brush them."

I imagine that people who approve of this censorship would want all of these offending words removed from ALL children's books, no point in just censoring one author. Replacing Rudyard Kipling with John Steinbeck is tampering with what Dahl wrote and is literary vandalism. I am a librarian, published author and freedom lover so this topic is dear to me. What think ye? 

In sum, keep your hands off my words! And all author's words. 


24 comments:

Sandi said...

Next up, the bible.

Summer said...

I happy for the changes. Sticks and stones, but words do hurt. What you like about the books remains.

Terra said...

I agree Sandi, next up the Bible. Then the Koran, Buddhist writings, Shakespeare and all written works. If not nipped in the bud this is the beginning of an avalanche. This type of censoring happened in the dystopian novel 1984. Of the first two comments on this post, it is 50/50, one in favor of censorship and one against. Push back friends.

Valerie-Jael said...

This is absolutely disgraceful. If people don't like what's in a book they don't have to read it, but this form of censorship is like stabbing someone in the back. I hope very much that this is not the beginning of an avalanche! I wonder who's earning money with editing and publishing the new editions? Valerie

Susan Kane said...

That is equal to book burning. Dr. Seuss books are under fire as well. What next? If people were given the option to buy the Woke favored book or the original version, which would/will they buy.

Miss Merry said...

Today Florida announced it is removing any references to race in the story of Rosa Parks. I guess if we can change and alter facts, it isn't a big deal to alter fiction. I am being sarcastic.

Personally, I feel that the inclusion of these words in books that children are reading either supervised by their parents (ha) or in school with teachers could be used as a teaching moment. ie. "When these books were written, it was socially acceptable to bully larger people and call them fat. Do you think that we are doing better today in recognizing that these words can hurt people?" "When this book was written, it was thought that all families had a mother and a father. Today there are many different ways we form families".

Children are so much smarter than adults.

Chatty Crone said...

I too agree with Sandi. Can they literally change the words an author wrote?
With the Bible they just pick out the words they like and forget the ones they don't care for.

Rian said...

You can't just change an author's words... can you? If you do, it's no longer their work. If you have a problem with it, then don't read their work. Seems simple enough.

Salty Pumpkin Studio said...

Some folks don't have mirrors, and probably would deny their own reflection.
I have a non fiction book published early 1900s that has horrendously insulting descriptions of African peoples. It is very disturbing to read. Given it is non fiction, changing the words would alter the historical context.
Changing some words in children's fiction aka teaching literature, creates a compassionate context for children to learn. Adjusting how we treat others to encourage compassion to form in a child's mind, I believe, is a good move forward.

Granny Marigold said...

I find the whole idea so crazy. I never thought the world would become so absolutely stupid.
Granny Marigold

Mari said...

I totally agree with you!

Margaret D said...

Being in the older generation I just don't understand how the books can't be left as they currently are, as that was how it was written by the author.
So I agree with you totally.

Betsy said...

I agree with the majority of commenters and you. Of course the Bible will be censored. Christians definitely are being censored and losing their jobs already. It's only the beginning. We all read these books as children, it didn't make us into insensitive monsters.
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Dr. Suess among many others.
How absolutely terrifying.
Blessings,
Betsy

Ann said...

Things like this make me furious. None of that could even be considered the least bit offensive. Why has it become necessary to offend the majority so as not to offend a few.

DawnTreader said...

I heard this about Roald Dahl's books discussed here in Sweden, too, and I think they're going along with basically the same changes here. Not even our own world-famous Astrid Lindgren goes free of some similar changes, there was a lot of debate about that a number of years ago. The major change was to replace the (in English) so-called "n-word". Pippi Longstocking's father, a sea captain, was then made king of the South Pacific rather than of "n-s"... Well I suppose that's a justified change (and not really changing the context) - even if here in Sweden, back in my childhood and youth, I never thought of that word as racist (having little concept of racism at all). Some of those changes you mention with Dahl's books do seem to border on the ridiculous though - and should the trend spread to other books, the whole fantasy genre would soon be in serious trouble. JK Rowling would have to rewrite her Harry Potter series as well. Can we really have Dudley fat, Snape despised because of greasy hair, or Voldemort described as snakelike (a bit unfair on those kinds of snakes that are perfectly harmless, isn't it?) And as for the Pippi Longstocking books, policemen and social workers are described as stupid; and Pippi lives on her own, lets her horse into the house, and doesn't go to school - can we actually let children today read that stuff at all? (lol)

The Bible I think is not quite comparable - very few of us are able to read the original text anyway (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic), and all in all there must be thousands of different translations world-wide dealing differently with certain cryptic passages. Personally, I've found reading different translations of Bible texts an enrichment, clarifying how difficult it really is to know how to interpret some of the more obscure meanings.

Some words do change their meaning with time, and cultural contexts change too. We need an awareness of that, and maybe sometimes a word does need to be replaced. This is done frequently when texts are translated from one language to another; but I think we react stronger to it when it is our own language that we occasionally may need to "translate". I do agree that some of the suggested changes in the Roald Dahl books seem to take it way too far, though. I think children are probably usually a lot better at making a difference between fiction and the real world than we give them credit for!

Carla from The River said...

I agree with you. I have to pinch myself to see if I am really living in this world.

Linda said...

It is terrible! I am always shocked at these changing times! Unbelievable!

Jeanie said...

This makes me terribly angry and I'm with you. If one doesn't want to read or have their family read them, that decision should be made in the home, not in the school, not by the city council and ESPECIALLY not by the publisher! (Rant over.)

dori said...

What apity to change the good strong words into week other words. Also in the famous Pippi Langstrumpf they did so. Not good! It makes it wrong. I dont like others to paint ino my paintings..

Tom said...

I don't know how they get away with it ... you'd think there'd be protests and lawsuits.

Susan said...

Hi Terra....Thanks for stopping by Writing Straight from the Heart and for commenting, too. I appreciated that sooooo much.
Today we are living in a kind of crazy world. Sometimes things make totally no sense at all. I think an author's words should remain intact.

meandmysmallcorner said...


Shocking that this is allowed to happen. Must we cotton wool everything and pretend the past never happened if it doesn't suit us. Dahl wasn't perfect but he did know how to write a story as did lots of other authors who are now been 'adapted' so as not to offend. I shall still read originals where I can find them.

Wanda said...

The world can't handle "TRUTH" but want to change it to mean "MY truth! No alsolutes! Thank you so much for your article!! It needs to be read!

Tammy@T's Daily Treasures said...

I think it's absolutely ridiculous. I live in a country where censorship is a big problem which is why so many bookstores have gone out of business over the years. Can't even get decent magazines anymore because it was such a problem getting them approved. I find it very disappointing. And changing literature after an author's death, when his books have been around for decades, is absolute nonsense.