Had you ever heard of these six books before today? Have you ever read them? How many were sold?
We've been sanitising kids books for decades now.
What version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory do you own? The original with actual African slaves and the colonialist rescue narrative, or the later version with Oompa Loompas and the colonialist rescue narrative? What version of Edward's Sneeze from the Thomas the Tank Engine series do you own? The one that uses the N word and has a black face joke, or the one that replaced the N word but kept the black face gag?
There are like a million kids books published each year. We're not going to miss the few that have lazy, racist, stereotypes.
You just proved the point that things have gone too far. Instead of quietly editing out a drawing or word or two it now must be banned in every store, from ever platform, and even the word "Mulberry", for example, must be purged from theme parks. I wish there weren't old racist things it books too, but the weird censorship and book banning creeps me out.
> Had you ever heard of these six books before today? Have you ever read them?
Yes, I own McElligot's Pool and I particularly remember borrowing On Beyond Zebra from the library for its imaginary alphabet.
The offensive material in Pool appears to be the "Eskimo fish" (the word "Eskimo" apparently being derogatory), and in Zebra, somewhat obscurely, a "Nazzim of Bazzim" riding a camel called a "Spazzim".
> We've been sanitising kids books for decades now.
I don't really have a problem with that, but they aren't being sanitized are they? They're just not being sold at all.
I bought a used version of an early edition of the original Where's Waldo on eBay. I later picked up a modern reprinting of all of them. My son and I were inspecting side-by-side and noticed some differences. Made the books more fun in a way (although if there had been something outrageously offensive in the original that would be a different matter).
The the typical answer to many of your questions is yes, and where the answers are no, the mission should be to preserve as the impact from selling them is apparently minimal.
We've been sanitising kids books for decades now.
What version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory do you own? The original with actual African slaves and the colonialist rescue narrative, or the later version with Oompa Loompas and the colonialist rescue narrative? What version of Edward's Sneeze from the Thomas the Tank Engine series do you own? The one that uses the N word and has a black face joke, or the one that replaced the N word but kept the black face gag?
There are like a million kids books published each year. We're not going to miss the few that have lazy, racist, stereotypes.