Roald Dahl Re-Written in the name of "Protecting Children"

If you haven't caught up on this yet, here's an Feb 2023 article from The Guardian. And in a March 2023 piece in Publishers Weekly, Kenny Brechner weighs in about what's at stake when we censor works -- even when it's done with the best intentions.

As reported in the Guardian, 

Augustus Gloop, Charlie’s gluttonous antagonist in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which originally was published in 1964, is no longer “enormously fat,” just “enormous”.

Some commentary highlights:

“If we start down the path of trying to correct for perceived slights instead of allowing readers to receive and react to books as written, we risk distorting the work of great authors and clouding the essential lens that literature offers on society,” tweeted Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive of PEN America

“The reasoning applied to the censorship of Roald Dahl’s books, which believes that books should be altered to fit a particular sensibility of the moment to shield children from harm, can be universally applied to all children’s books, and by a multiplicity of sensibilities. The effect of having an Artificial Intelligence algorithm operating on all books in digital form, altering them to suit a particular sensibility before reprints, is substantially the same idea as the Dahl process. We could easily see multiple altered versions of the same book suited to competing social and political mores and values.... Books are a constant while their readers age and change over time... To alter them to suit a present perspective is to undermine the opportunity for understanding and reflection.” wrote Kenny Brechner

After the backlash to the censorship of Dahl's books in the UK, Entertainment Weekly reported that the US editions will remain unchanged. And the UK will publish the original versions as the "classic" versions.

The new language used in the UK, as reported in the Guardian article, was "reviewed in partnership with Inclusive Minds, a collective working to make children’s literature more inclusive and accessible." And while that goal is laudable, should we be going back in time and revising past works, or focus inclusion and accessibility efforts on new titles?

It's a fascinating debate - especially troubling in this time of books being banned by the people in power for including underrepresented people they don't like.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee