Sanitizing Roald Dahl

Let's talk about it then...

Quote:

Roald Dahl’s children’s books are being rewritten to remove language deemed offensive by the publisher Puffin. Puffin has hired sensitivity readers to rewrite chunks of the author’s text to make sure the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, resulting in extensive changes across Dahl’s work. Edits have been made to descriptions of characters’ physical appearances. The word “fat” has been cut from every new edition of relevant books, while the word “ugly” has also been culled, the Daily Telegraph reported. Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is now described as “enormous”. In The Twits, Mrs Twit is no longer “ugly and beastly” but just “beastly”.

And this one...

Quote:

In previous editions of James and the Giant Peach, the Centipede sings: “Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat / And tremendously flabby at that,” and, “Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire / And dry as a bone, only drier.” Both verses have been removed, and in their place are the rhymes: “Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute / And deserved to be squashed by the fruit,” and, “Aunt Spiker was much of the same / And deserves half of the blame.”

I'm going to say this is an outrage and I demand that the changes not be made!

As pointed out in this tweet...

Quote:

kids like Roald Dahl because he is the weird kid in the playground who wants to show you a box full of worms and slugs, and trying to rewrite him into a preacher of didactic virtue is going to ring inevitably false to the spirit of the books

and

Quote:

roald dahl: lemme tell you about something ****** UP roald dahl (revised): lemme tell you about something ****** UP but also remember that women can be business leaders.

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/0pytECk