UK-based publisher Puffin has hired so-called “sensitivity gurus” to scrub legendary author Roald Dahl’s children’s books for new editions to avoid offending snowflake liberals. The changes are so drastic, few readers will recognize them from the original works
Dahl’s famous works include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Big James and the Giant Peach, Matilda and The BFG.
For example, Charlie and the Oompa Loompas from the Chocolate Factory are now “gender neutral”. The word “fat” has also disappeared from the book’s lexicon, much to the delight of “body positivity” campaigners.
New versions will no longer refer to characters as female. Cloud-Man in James and the Giant Peach is now “Cloud-People”.
These are just a small sample of the hundreds of changes Dahl made to his books.
Dahl also became the latest victim of the ongoing campaign to dismiss children’s authors for politically correct purposes. Two years ago, the Dr. Seuss enterprise bowed to the cultural cancellation of the left when they shut down six books bearing its name because of “racism.”
Joe Biden totally embraced the effort to discredit the legendary author by not including his books during “Read Across America.”
Hopefully you’ve kept the old Dahl classics for your children and grandchildren. The new edition will be a terrific reading experience.
The Daily Mail reported:
Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s books are being rewritten by sensitive gurus to remove language they find offensive, creating a world where no one is ‘fat’ and Oompa Loompas are gender neutral.
Publisher Puffin employed sensitive readers to rewrite sections of the author’s text to ensure that the books ‘could continue to be enjoyed by everyone today’, resulting in extensive changes throughout Dahl’s work.
Substantial editing has been done to describe the physical appearance of the characters – the new version no longer uses the word ‘fat’ which has been cut from every book.
Hundreds of changes were made to the original text, erasing Dahl’s colorful and memorable descriptions, some over fifty years old, to make his characters less eccentric.
Gender is also omitted with the book no longer referring to ‘female’ characters.
Matilda’s Miss Trunchbull, once ‘the strongest woman’, is now a ‘strongest woman’, while her ‘great horse’s face’ is now called ‘her face’.
The Oompa-Loompas who were once the ‘Little People’ are now the ‘Little People’ and Fantastic Mr. Fox’s three sons and daughters.
Passages written by the late author, who died in 1990, have also been added by the publishers to complete their new edition.
In The Witches, a passage describing them as bald under their wigs is soon followed by a new line: ‘There are many other reasons why women wear wigs, and there is certainly nothing wrong with them.’
Mental health was another focal point for sensitive readers with the words ‘insane’ and ‘insane’, which Dahl used in a comic fashion, removed from his book.
In The BFG The Big Friendly Giant no longer wears a black outfit and characters cannot be ‘white with fear’, as the words ‘black’ and ‘white’ no longer exist in the new version.
Elsewhere, James’ Cloud-Man and Giant Peach are now known as ‘Cloud-People’.
In Acio Trot, a joke is made about the title on the back of the book: ‘Turtles are very backward animals. So they can only understand words that are written backwards’ has been changed to: ‘They can only understand words that are written backwards.
Puffin and the Roald Dahl Story Company made the latest changes in conjunction with Inclusive Minds, which its spokesperson describes as ‘a collective for people passionate about inclusion and accessibility in children’s literature’.