Bonkers. If you don't like the books don't read them, but don't change them. Let people read the originals and make up their own minds about the language.
"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day, minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except in the present in which the Party is always right." George Orwell, 1984
Hope they haven't changed Danny rhe Champion of the world, that was always my favourite. And the Magic finger was one of the first books I remember reading all by myself.
Madness. (A banned word under the new censorship.) I’m all for increasing reader audiences, but there’s a cynical commercialism in play, here. & these people are quite happy to profit from the work of a renowned Anti Semite? It’s funny how they can separate that minor detail from the text, but not the word ‘white’..
This isn’t anything to do with a made up PC Brigade. It’s to do with the publisher making sure the Dahl cash cow is forever funnelling money into their bank.
Absolute stupidity. We're trying to encourage fans to go to Oakwell and then we make it all ticket with thousands of empty seats. I blame Khaled. yes this one was deliberate
I’m torn on this. Roald Dahl himself had changed his books multiple times to update them (e.g. the original Oompa Loompas were black slaves and were depicted in a racist way) and they would never have survived this long in schools up and down the country without it. As a school librarian, I have consigned many books to the dustheap for having outdated language, whether this is racist language (books depicting characters experiencing racism are very different to books where the narrator if 1st person/author if 3rd person speaks/writes in a racist way) or just old fashioned slang that is toe-curlingly embarrassing to read. A large part of my job is ensuring that students have access to good quality and suitable texts and not just stocking every book that has ever been written, long after they have become old and stale. The Alex Rider books have been updated with new technology (he’s a child spy) to remove references to discmen for example. These updates do seem to be quite broad but if it means that children can continue to enjoy the overall story then I don’t think it’s entirely a bad thing. It’s surprising how outdated books that you remember fondly from your childhood seems when you are reading them to a teenager.
I disagree @JamDrop . Fair enough for the original author to change things but books aren't just stories, they're language. And that language is what creates the pictures in your mind. I remember complaining to our local library that they wouldn't stock Enid Blyton books though!