So-called “sensitivity gurus” hired by UK-based publisher Puffin hired are scrubbing legendary author Roald Dahl’s children’s books for new editions in order 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.
The Oompa Lloompas from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, for example, are now “gender neutral.” The word “fat” has also disappeared from the books’ lexicon to appease “body positivity” campaigners.
The new editions will no longer refer to characters as female. The Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach are now “cloud-people.”
These are just a small sampling of the hundreds of changes made to Dahl’s books.
Dahl also becomes the latest victim in the ongoing campaign to cancel children’s authors for politically correct purposes. Two years ago, Dr. Seuss Enterprises bowed to cancel culture leftists when they discontinued six of its namesake’s books due to “racism.”
Joe Biden fully embraced the efforts to cancel the legendary author by not including his books during a “Read Across America Day.”
Hope you kept old Dahl classics for your children and grandchildren. The new editions will be an awful reading experience.
The Daily Mail reported:
Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s books are being rewritten by sensitivity gurus to remove language they deem offensive, including creating a world where no one is ‘fat’ and the Oompa Loompas are gender neutral.
Publisher Puffin has hired sensitivity readers to rewrite chunks of the author’s text to make sure the books ‘can continue to be enjoyed by all today’, resulting in extensive changes across Dahl’s work.
Considerable edits have been made to descriptions of the characters’ physical appearance – the new editions no longer use the word ‘fat’ which has been cut from every book.
Hundreds of changes were made to the original text, extinguishing Dahl’s colourful and memorable descriptions, some over fifty years old, to make his characters less grotesque.
Gender is also eliminated with books no longer referring to ‘female’ characters.
Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, once a ‘most formidable female’, is now a ‘most formidable woman’, while her ‘great horsey face’ is now called ‘her face’.
Oompa-Loompas who were once ‘small men’ are now ‘small people’ and Fantastic Mr. Fox’s three sons have become daughters.
Passages not written by the late author, who died in 1990, have also been added by the publisher to complete their new editions.
In The Witches, a paragraph describing them as bald under their wigs is followed shortly by a new line: ‘There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.”
Mental health was another focal point for sensitivity readers with the words ‘crazy’ and ‘mad’, which Dahl used in a comic fashion, removed from his books.
The Big Friendly Giant in The BFG no longer wears a black cloak and characters cannot turn ‘white with fear’, as the words ‘black’ and ‘white’ no longer exist in the new editions.
Elsewhere, the Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach are now known as ‘Cloud-People’.
In Esio Trot, a joke about the book’s backwards title has been cut: ‘Tortoises are very backward creatures. Therefore 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 who are passionate about inclusion and accessibility in children’s literature.’