Cancelled, Bif f Chip and Kipper
Children’s favourite pulped in race row
A BOOK from the Biff, Chip and Kipper children’s series has been axed after complaints of racism over its depiction of Muslims.
Oxford University Press issued a formal apology and said it had taken the book out of circulation, destroying all its remaining stock.
The Blue Eye sees the characters in the Middle East, where they help a princess who is being chased by a group of men.
Some of the text has been branded racist because it describes a town as ‘scary’ and the locals ‘unfriendly’.
Photographs of the offending pages were shared on Twitter by teachers, parents and race campaigners. The title, aimed at six and seven-year-olds, was discontinued last month – 21 years after it was created and illustrated by Roderick Hunt and Alex Brychta.
The tale begins with Wilf and Biff being transported to a land which appears to be in the Middle East.
On arrival, Wilf says: ‘I don’t like this place. It’s scary.’ In a marketplace, Biff says: ‘The people don’t seem very friendly.’ The children help Princess Aisha to escape and
‘Teaches kids to be Islamophobic’
fly back to her homeland with ‘the blue eye’, a precious stone.
After the pages went viral, critics piled in to brand it racist and offensive to Muslims. One said it would mean children would ‘learn how to be Islamophobic’. Another said: ‘So inappropriate. People [have been] brainwashed to stay away from Muslims and labelled [them] as scary people.’
Oxford University Press (OUP) responded on Twitter: ‘We sincerely apologise for the offence caused...
Please be reassured this book is no longer available to buy.’
In a further statement, OUP said the 2001 title was modified in 2012, but following an ‘independent review’ it has been ‘taken out of print’ altogether. The spokesman added that OUP ‘destroyed its own remaining stock of the book’. The move provoked a backlash online. One said: ‘These are little kids making an observation about their strange surroundings and just being careful.’ Another added: ‘This is actually crazy! Why are they apologising? You can end up seeing racism, stereotypes [and] Islamophobic aspects when you look deep into anything.’
The Biff, Chip and Kipper collection of 800 titles has been used in primary schools for more than 30 years and has been made into a show on CBeebies.