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FORGOTTEN HISTORY: Puffin books | History Defined

Children's Books Pulled After 'Spy Dog' Website Links to Explicit Content — How Did This Happen?

Puffin Books withdraws 'Spy Dog' series from UK shelves after an outdated website link inside children's books leads to explicit content.

International Business Times UK

Giant: John Lithgow’s masterful turn explores Roald Dahl’s antisemitism – and wider questions about children’s literature

Back in 2023, a bitter debate erupted over the editing of Roald Dahl’s children’s books. His publishers, Puffin Books, had worked with Dahl’s estate (now owned by Netflix) to remove references to violence, body size, mental health, gender and skin colour. Now, a new play about an incident in Dahl’s…

The Conversation

OPINION - Censoring children’s books is an insult to their intelligence

AS so often, Roald Dahl (unexpurgated) put it best. In The Twits, prior to its bowdlerisation by Puffin Books, he observed of Mrs Twit: “Have you ever seen a woman with an uglier face than that? I doubt it. But the funny thing is that Mrs Twit wasn’t born ugly.…

Evening Standard

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From Roald Dahl to Goosebumps, revisions to children's classics are really about copyright – a legal expert explains

The backlash to Puffin Books’ decision to update Roald Dahl’s children’s books has been swift and largely derisive. The publisher has been accused of “absurd censorship”, “corporate safetyism” and “cultural vandalism.”

The Conversation

Roald Dahl: A brief history of sensitivity edits to children’s literature

Puffin Books have worked with the consultancy Inclusive Minds (who say they help publishers, authors and illustrators work towards authentic inclusion, accessibility, and diverse representation) to revise some of the language used in Roald Dahl’s books for children, more than 100 years after his birth.

The Conversation

Rishi Sunak joins calls for Roald Dahl books to be left alone: Who else is against rewrites?

‘I think it’s important that works of literature and works of fiction are preserved and not airbrushed,’ said the PM’s spokesperson

Evening Standard

Prime Minister criticises rewriting of Roald Dahl’s books as ‘gobblefunk’

Downing Street said works of art should be preserved and not ‘airbrushed’ for modern audiences.

The Independent UK

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Rishi Sunak says ‘don’t gobblefunk with language’ as he slams ‘airbrushing’ of Roald Dahl

PM opposes edits to children’s classics to remove material deemed offensive

The Independent UK

Why are Roald Dahl’s books being rewritten?

Publisher Puffin hired sensitivity readers to rewrite passages to edit out words such as ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’

Evening Standard

Race, weight and gender stripped out of Roald Dahl books to avoid offence

Augustus Gloop is no longer fat as Puffin Books confirmed it has rewritten the classics, removing references to issues such as weight and mental health

Wales Online

Salman Rushdie condemns ‘absurd censorship’ after Roald Dahl’s books rewritten

Content deemed offensive, such as references to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race, has been altered.

The Independent UK

Critics reject changes to Roald Dahl books as censorship

Critics are accusing the British publisher of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s books of censorship after it removed colorful language from works such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Matilda” to make them more acceptable to modern readers

People

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Roald Dahl Story Company

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Puffin Books

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