Commentary | Against the bait and switch censorship of Roald Dahl – By Alison Stine (Salon) / Feb 22, 2023
There are issues with the children’s book writer, but they’re not the words “fat” or “men”
“Attractive” is out. “Cashier” is out. “Boys and girls” are out. These are a handful of the many changes to the published books of Roald Dahl. Announced by his publisher Puffin and first reported by The Telegraph, the hundreds of changes have impacted new editions of classic books like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “The Witches” and “Matilda.” As the AP reported, “some passages relating to weight, mental health, gender and race were altered.”
Salon’s Kelly McClure wrote, “Other big changes are being made to gender-specific character descriptions, swapping ‘female’ with ‘woman,’ or doing away with the mention of gender altogether. The Oompa Loompas, a favorite from Dahl’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,’ will now be called ‘small people’ rather than ‘small men.'”
In other words: censorship. The censoring of Dahl comes at a time when books, literature and their writers face very real threats. In 2022, author Salman Rushdie was stabbed onstage in a near-fatal attack; the writer has since lost sight in one eye. Thousands of books about race, gender and sexuality have recently been banned around the country, with librarians, including elementary school librarians, on the front lines dealing with serious prosecution for something as simple — and necessary — as providing access to books.
Is the censoring of Dahl meant to avoid being burned in this hot climate, or to somehow bring relevance to an antiquated author? Either way, censoring Dahl is a bad idea and actually commits the ultimate sin in children’s literature: viewing child readers as less-than.
CONTINUE > https://www.salon.com/2023/02/22/roald-dahl-censorship/
