British writer Imogen West-Knights was outraged by the “tolerant” edits of a Western publisher in children’s books. She expressed her dissatisfaction in an article for the publication. Slate.
In the material, she criticized the copyright holder of the heritage of children’s author Roald Dahl. He decided to distort the meaning of children’s works with his edits.
“There are moments in all of these books that are a little unsettling for modern readers… I mention all this because of a new episode in the foolish and doomed enterprise of our time: to make children’s literature more inclusive so that Dahl’s books “still appeal to everyone children today”wrote West-Knights.
It is clarified that now the copyright holder for Dahl’s books is the Roald Dahl Story Company. The organization is going to distort the works together with the publishing house Puffin.
According to the writer, the changes will affect the weight, gender, race and mental health of the characters.
So, the hero of the book “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” August Gloop will not be “fat”, but “huge”. At the same time, according to the plot, the character is precisely “fat”: in the book this word is not an insult, but a description of the type of physique.
In conclusion, the writer clarified that changes may also threaten Dahl’s books such as “Matilda”, “Witches”, “Fantastic Mr. Fox”, “The Big and Kind Giant” and others. However, it is still unknown how exactly the copyright holders want to distort the works.
In late December, it was reported that the US Marines want to ban the address “sir” and “ma’am” because of gender.
