It’s Roald Dahl and the giant rewriting of history. Let’s not be twits about this

I generally don’t agree with books being censored but it gets tricky when it comes to children’s literature.

Roald Dahl’s work being rewritten to remove language that’s deemed offensive makes me uncomfortable, particularly as he’s not here to be part of the discussion.

I’ve read those wonderful books to my son and grew up on them myself. To this day, the descriptions of the women in The Witches have stayed with me, terrifying and vivid, and same with The Twits. I can still picture the cornflakes and debris stuck in the beard of Mr Twit.

I would have disagreed with the argument ar that Augustus Gloop from Charlie Ch And The Chocolate Factory should sh now be “enormous” rather than th “enormously fat” until an n email em from my son’s school recently re complaining about offensive off language used on pupils’ pu group chats made me think.

Words matter. The use of certain ce types of language is powerful, po so if it’s OK for children’s ch authors to describe e people pe as fat or ugly, why wouldn’t wo kids use those terms s as well?

As a parent, it’s my job to help my child ch understand what is and isn’t acceptable ac but they consume so much through their phones, movies and media as well as books, it now feels impossiblep to police. ReworReworking descriptions of weigweight, gender and menmental health still seeseems a bit unnecessaryun to me. TheyThe were written in a ddifferent time and we should acknacknowledge those times as an era when people werew less sensitive and aware.

I ddon’t’t thithinkk anyone really cares about the gender of the Oompa Loompas from Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. They are menacing whether they are male or female and don’t need to be reinvented for modern times. Junior reading a book that contains offensive or outdated attitudes opens up the opportunity to explain how and why the way in which we talk about people has changed.

When it comes to race, the conversation gets a little more serious. Enid Blyton’s books are littered with racist slurs, but again, I have no problems with teachers and parents explaining the problematic aspects of the books at the time they were written. It should be discussed rather than brushed under the carpet or erased.

Stories written for adults have issues too but a more mature reader should be able to contextualise and have a better understanding of the social and historical setting of the book.

Like Dahl, Ian Fleming’s James Bond series has been reviewed by sensitivity readers, which seems crazy as we all know 007 is wildly sexist and a bit ridiculous but we enjoy the super spy for what he is. Going back and removing the character traits of Bond is erasing the material as it was written and that’s wrong. The version of Bond we see on screen now is sanitised anyway but on the page he should be left as he is. We can’t keep rewriting history. Just lay it out honestly and let the reader decide.

007 is wildly sexist and a bit s but we ridiculou spy for enjoy the is what he