Rewriting children's literature: Yay or Nay?

Great Debates
21

Have a copy of the origional and you only have a copy. Revised books add to literature. If they sell better then the general idea is that they are better. They aren’t better from a historical perspective, but if people read the books for that then there would not be much literature out there. Classics tell you something about the past, but revised editions tell you something about the present.

[quoteConsider the audience. The kids who are reading children’s classics are neither young nor stupid. They are smart, skilled readers. They are not going to be either heavily influenced or heavily traumatized by a racist passage in an otherwise good book; however, they may just be able to learn something from it, as discussed in other posts above. In other words, kids who are prepared to read books of this type are also prepared to insulate themselves against any deleterious effects of the kinds of racist passages we’re discussing. [/quote]

It teaches them about the past and how to deal with things if they ever got their hands on a time machine. Revised editions deal with the present.

I read alot and I haven’t read many of the classics mostly because they are boring. But thats only classics for the english language. Classics in other languages are “revised” to modern day standards when they are translated. The nuances and way the author was trying to make the story good are lost when those parts of the language are changed. When you read a classic in its origional setting your view is distorted because you view it from a modern day setting when they were writing for a different setting. You don’t view it how the author intended you to view it and you end up with a distorted copy either way.

22

My main objection is that it seems insulting to take someone else’s work, and then adapt is as you see fit. If you have a mythos created by a particular author, with a conclusion reached by that author, who has the right to change that? And that is what you effectively do when you write additonal episodes for a story that had been given an end.

23

:rolleyes: Ad Infinitum.

There is a satirical short story by Connie Willis called “Ado.” It is about a high school teacher in the future wanting to teach Shakespeare. Needless to say, she can’t give anything to any student which somebody somewhere might find offensive. Jews take umbrage to The Merchant of Venice. Lawyers are offended by that famous quote. Descendants of Richard III think the play is slanderous because there is no real evidence that he killed the two boys. Othello? Don’t even think about it. The teacher decides on Hamlet, but must remove all offensive lines, words, characters, ideas, ect ect. Sword play is out—glorifies violence. Pouring poison in the ear is out—some kid may try to do it in real life with Drano. Ghosts are out—kids can’t be taught superstition. Ophilia’s suicide is out—can’t let kids think killing themselves is an option.

What is left of the play when all the offending stuff is taken out? A couple of lines about it being late at night and very cold.

It’s a very funny story. And very poignant. I suggest looking for it at your local library or bookstore.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that there are large groups, even here, that support the revisions of books. I enjoy my books just the way they were written, outdated and offensive stereotypes and all, no contemporary “improvements” required. Hell, I get peeved at modernized spelling and punctuation. If someone wants to live in a sanitized world were all the words and ideas are modified to fit a certain ideal of what a particular group or groups deem proper and good, then I heatedly invite them in immigrate to Iraq. Saddam will ensure you can’t read anybody the story of “Little Black Sambo.”

And what will be done with the editions of books already in print? Recall Huckleberry Finn so nigger can be modified to African-American? Wouldn’t that be like Winston Smith’s job in 1984.

24

This is one of those things that irritates but doesn’t enrage me.

First of all, I prefer unadapted, unabridged, unrevised books for children – largely because, like Manda JO and tomndebb, I think the lesson that racism and sexism was once so deeply entrenched that it was unremarkable even in children’s books is an important one. Even good, kind people were prejudiced – they didn’t know any better yet. I believe that one of the reasons many people think things are “worse today than they used to be” is thanks to TV shows like (the dreaded) Little House on the Prairie. The show showed a world that looked like the 19th century but thought and acted like the late 20th. The books, on the other hand, gave a more accurate portrait of the times. I read them to my kids when they were quite young, and they had plenty of questions: “Mom? Why does that Indian man talk like that?” “Why does Ma hate the Indians?” “Why do they call Black people ‘darkies?’” “Doesn’t it make the Black people mad that the white men dress up like them?” Later, when they read the books themselves, they had more subtle questions: “Mom, if Laura didn’t want to teach, why couldn’t she just get another kind of job?” “Why does Laura quit her job when she gets married?” “Why doesn’t Mary keep on going to school with Laura and Carrie after she’s blind?” The (stupid, stupid) TV show leaves the impression that we’ve made no social progress at all in the last 100 years, while the unedited books show our progress. I think that revised-for-political-correctness books often have the same flavor as (the horrible, rotten, ghastly) Little House on the Prairie TV show.

On the other hand – they’ve been abridging and editing children’s books forever. I’ve never bought such books, but the market for them is huge and of long standing. A character in one of my favorite children’s books (written in the '50s) laments a version of “Three Musketeers with Milady DeWinter left right out!” So, I can’t get real riled up about the issue unless they’re revising the books without placing the word “revised” on the cover somewhere.

BTW, Jois? Your bookseller may have given you incorrect gouge – I loved the Raggedy Ann books. I’m not sure what she meant by “not on a par with the dolls.” I think a Raggedy Ann doll and book set would have been a charming gift.

25

Luckily, nobody ever studies that particular play in school anyway… :wink:

26

Nay. I would be absoulutely opposed to anyone but the author changing a published work for any reason other than translation into another language or to make an abridged version of said work.

Authors write every word for a reason, and that is to convey their vision to the reader. Some things are written in a manner that is supposed to make you question, if not piss you off out-right, not because a writer wants to please every single reader. If you do not like their word choice, don’t read that book to your child. Let them read it themselves when they are old enough not to have what they read be overshadowed by your own prejudices and insecurities.

27

Again, as an author, I personally reserve the right to burn my work before I let another person touch it. I mean, I’ve had some good editors that seriously improved my work, but I reserved the right for the final copy. I would never want someone to be able to change my work after it’s in the publishable form I want.

some authors don’t feel strongly about it or they are happy to have people change their stuff. More power to them.

However, I feel it’s important that either the author gives express permission to change their work, or you never change a line.

28

If I write any type of literature, or any type of art/creation, I don’t care what type it is, I should be the only one with any ability/right to edit it, or consent to its editing.

Once I {or any author} die, no further alterations should be possible.

If 200 years after my publication, it is no longer relevant, by all means let my work be forgotten about. I would rather have my legacy short and true, than, long but false.

Look at the literary atrocity being commited here:

The fucking editor of that book has taken it
upon himself to remove all “sexist pronouns” (ex: saying he instead of he/she in 500BC) and replace them with some “gender neutral” words. Where does he, or any publisher get the right to do that sort of thing? Especailly since Plato didn’t sign a contract with Bandanna Publishing giving them that ability.

I know the OP is talking about children’s books, but the principle still applies. There are pleanty of other books that are politically correct. Instead of updating Dr. Doolittle, against the wishes of the deceased author, to make a profit, just don’t buy that book if you’re worried about its politically incorrect content.

29

What about Mary Poppins, then, when the author made the revisions herself? She wrote the new chapter at the request of her publisher, although she seems to have done so with a lot of eye rolling. Then again, P.L. Travers seems to have done everything with a lot of eye rolling, so it’s hard to say what that means, exactly. Of course, I have left my book with her exact quote on the subject at the office, so I will post that quote later if it’s still applicable. Was it wrong for the publisher to pressure her to do so? She is an adult, she wasn’t being blackmailed, so she could have refused.

Or, another scenario, books like Nancy Drew. They were penned by a series of ghost writers, and it was very clear up front that the syndicate would own the rights to the stories, not the authors. They were revised several times since their original publication. One major area of revision seemed to dumb them down, and the other removed negative racial and ethnic stereotypes. Were children well served by having these new verions? The original books are now being reprinted (at least some of the titles) and I have been enjoying them a great deal. Since I’m not old enough to have grown up with the originals, most of the fun comes from a comparative reading of how social norms and perceptions changed over the decades.

I forgot to comment earlier on LightTracer’s comments about the Bible. The Bible is in fact altered all the time. I think we used the Good News Bible for Children in CCD, and it definitely does tone down the racy parts. The Bible was probably the first book revised especially for children.

30

oh lord here we go.

This is my take on things, as a voracious childhood reader.

My parents stopped trying to censor my reading matter when I was 8. yes, 8.

Not because they thought I was old enough to deal with everything I might read but because I sat them down and told them that:
I skipped pages that frightened me
I looked up words I didn’t understand in the dictionary, so that ought to be the first book they locked up
I asked them if I didn’t get the story
I stopped reading if I didn’t like the book
They couldn’t lock every book in the house up and watch me 24 hours a day to stop me reading them
and lastly, that I knew fiction books were just that and that they were as real as fairytales.

So I read lots of stuff I probably shouldn’t have, but at least I talked about it with my parents. And i’m about as PC as you can get (here I am defending free speech) without getting excessive about it.

FYI
I stopped reading Enid Blyton when I realised the girls always got the boring things to do and the boys got more fun. My favourite books were the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling and the animal books of Gerald Durrell. One absolutely great for the under sixes (the age I was when I read them), the others not quite so good. He writes about capturing animals in the wild for zoos (strike one) and about their lives, including breeding (strike two), diseases and death (strike three) , and some charming habits they have (i think the books are being burnt now).

Has anyone ever read the Grimm fairy stories in the original versions? or shock headed peter? THAT was appropriate reading matter for kids 100 years ago, and they complain about violence on tv?
sure, tone it down if it’s going to SCARE them, but if you can discuss it? no.

The idea of removing the Christian imagery from the Narnia books repels me. It’s called an allegory. Rewiting them is like trying to rewrite the “pilgrim’s progess” as a secular travelogue.
Kids generally don’t see different levels until you point them out, if you are Christian then it’s a great story, if you aren’t then it’s a great story and you have to explain why you don’t agree with the author.
The point of a great story is that it stays that way, warts and all. Sanitising a book because it is meant for children is ridiculous.

Which is better,
reading “little black sambo” and then having a discussion about racism with your children
or,
reading “the cat in the hat” and then taking them to a KKK meeting?

Actually a great story about this is “The Day They Came To Arrest The Book” by Nat somebody-or-other.
I’d say suitable for the ten to fourteens. But then i’m not the best judge.

31

The book that irishgirl mentions - The Day They Came to Arrest the Book - is by Nat Hentoff. Oh, and irishgirl - I, at least, still read Gerald Durrell, though I admit I like the stories about his family best.

delphica, you should read Places I Never Meant to Be, which is a collection of short stories edited by Judy Blume. The stories themselves are mixed - some good, some not - but in her introduction, Blume explains very well what being asked to change something in a book you’ve written is like; she talks about a small but important change she was pressured to make in Tigereyes, and why that experience led to her ongoing involvement in anticensorship activities.

The whole book is worth reading, including the statements by the authors, especially for someone who advocates censorship of children’s literature in any form - and make no mistake, altering an already-published work to make a better fit with modern ethics and values is censorship. If Travers did not want to change her book, but did anyway because she was being heavily pressed by her publisher to do so, then that is censorship.

In general, alteration is probably more pernicious censorship than simple banning; when a book is banned, people are more likely to defend it and to see the stupidity of it, but when a book is changed, people may not even realize it.

Most children who read these more challenging and less modern books are like irishgirl was as a child - they are capable of making informed decisions about what they read, and they are not likely to form values based on a book. When we edit older books to match our current morality, we aren’t helping these kids, we’re depriving them - depriving them of the opportunity to experience these books as they were written, and depriving them of the opportunity to develop critical faculties and evaluation skills. Further, we’re injuring the integrity of the work and impinging on the creative rights of the author.

If you’re against censorship, you’re against it in any form. And if you say it is wrong except when it’s to support something you agree with, you’re for censorship - just as much as the most rabid anti-Diary of Anne Frank fundamentalist in some backwards county in Tennessee. It’s as simple as that.

32

After following this debate with great interst, I would like to change my position.

I’m still not against editing childrens books.I believe there is a market for it, driven by parents who want to offer their kids “safe” (whatever that means) material. I believe it is wrong to alter the content of the book in such a way that its meaning is lost. However, the market is there, and it is not going to go away. The alternative “you can’t read this book” is, IMO, worse.

However, As some people pointed out, kids are smart enough to know right from wrong and fiction from reality. Needlessly sheltering them serves no usefull purpose whatsoever.

I think the main arguement for editting classical childrens books is simply to make them more accessable. Lets face it, not everyone is going to put a dictionary on their bedstand to look up an obscure word every few minutes. Some people might actually throw out the book in frustration, thus nerver finishing a great work of literature.

On a final note, I would like to say that most editors are not evil incarnate (as some would have us think). Most of the time, the sugested alteraitions are meant to improve the book by making it more legible or more accessible. How is making a book available to a wider audience wrong?

b.t.w. deepbluesea it’s funny you should mention Anne Frank, as original versions of this book were heavily censored by Anne Frank’s father (whole chapters were left out) to hide some of the more controversial parts of the book, such as Anne’s fights with her mother.

33

If the Mary Poppins author herself wants to change it, well it is up to her. Plenty of authors rewrite first books or first stories 'cause they weren’t happy with them.

If my publisher ever made giving up the rights as a precondition for being published, I would either burn my work if I cared about it, OR take the cash for something I didn’t care about.

Finally, PUK “On a final note, I would like to say that most editors are not evil incarnate (as some would have us think). Most of the time, the sugested alteraitions are meant to improve the book by making it more legible or more accessible. How is making a book available to a wider audience wrong?”

It’s wrong if the original author thinks it’s wrong. If the original author signs away rights contractually, that’s another story. Most authors that really care about this would rather starve than let one punctuation mark in their work be changed post fact.

34

I disagree that you could call this censorship, deepbluesea. Censorship is a government action, and it is such a serious charge that I, myself, get nervous when I see the term diluted by applying it to similair, but not identical things.

Upon thinking about it some more, I don’t think I am really morally opposed to revision as some of you are, I simply don’t think it is a good idea. People have been writting “dumbed down” versions of the “classics” for generations, and those never offended me, I simply felt no desire to read them. Nor do I feel that a writer has any moral right to control their product once they have thrown it out there, though they may have a legal right until the copyright expires. I mean, we see alterations/adaptations of great works of visual art all the time–do you ever stop and think 'Da Venci never authorized that version of the Last Supper done as a hook-rug. It’s immoral."?

Here is an example–there are any number of versions of The Swiss Family Robinson floating around out there, because various translators took an awful lot of liberty with the book. My understanding is that one thing they almost all have in common is a changed ending: in the original the family all leave the island. Apparently not long after the (post-humous) publication of the novel, it becamse clear that that what most readers wanted to see happen was for some people to stay in Paradise. (I can’t find a cite for this on-line, but I am looking. I remember this from an afterword to one of the two versions of The Swiss Family Robinson that my library had growing up). I do think that revisions should be clearly marked as such, and that an afterword explaining what was changed and why is a good compromise position. Overall, I still disagree that there is any reason to change Mary Poppins or Dr. Dolittle, and many good reasons not to, but I don’t think it is a moral wrong. I am more concerned with what it means for today’s children that what dead people would have wanted.

35

Manda JO, censorship is not necessarily a government action - communities can censor, organizations can censor, even individuals can censor. And they do. Censoring is the act of suppressing content that a person or a group of people find objectionable - and that is exactly what is happening when someone rewrites Dr. Doolittle to take out racist overtones.

I, too, am concerned for today’s children. But as I’ve pointed out (along with others), the kids who read these books are most likely not adversely affected. At worst, they’re surprised and disturbed - which is not necessarily a bad thing. And I’m concerned about freedom of expression, which is a right that I want today’s children to inherit because I think it’s crucial to our society and it underpins most other freedoms. When expression is altered or suppressed, it is not free. Although I am also concerned about the rights of authors, living or dead, that’s not the central issue for me - I am looking much more at the future than at the past.

You bring up the ‘dumbed down’ editions of the classics. Am I opposed to them? Well, they make me gag, and I do feel sorry for the authors whose works are gutted - I recall reading a revised edition of Little Women that was so unlike the original I thought it ought to say ‘inspired by Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.’ But there’s a crucial difference between those dumbed down editions and the racism-free editions; in the latter, content is removed because it is objectionable. In the former, content is removed because it is hard or boring to read. So one is censorship and the other is abridgement.

I can’t address Swiss Family Robinson, because I’ve never read the book, and I can’t read it in the original. I don’t want to base an argument on thin air, which is roughly what I’d be doing there.

However, another example of a book that is published in many different forms is The Sword in the Stone. Depending on the way the book is published (freestanding or with the rest of the books, etc.), the editor usually will choose one or more episodes to pull. This is profoundly annoying, since the books are not usually labeled as abridged, but it isn’t censorship. The editors are trying to control length (and costs), not content.

What I want to avoid at all costs is people thinking it’s acceptable to change or remove any objectionable content.

36

To me, offering revised editions isn’t in and of itself an act of suppression. Were groups lobbying to have exisiting copies of Dr. Doolittle removed from the shelves and replaced with the new versions, that would be suppression. As it is now, there is no barrier to publication of the original material (except possibly copyright, which is a diferent issue). If you want to put up a web page with the missing chapter, you can go right ahead. If you want to publish an “unexpurgiated” edition and you have the money, go right ahead.

And I agree with this point: see my first post, way up there. I think that editing these novels is denying children a valuble glimpse into the way our attitudes have changed, and perhaps even encourages them to more closely examine thier own hearts. I think that the idea of issueing sanitized versions of these books is hte worst type of PC-Nannyism run amok. But I don’t think it is a sin as some other people here seem to feel, and I don’t think it is totally “unacceptable” to edit a work of literature. I just think it is stupid.

37

Oh, revision is not so bad. In fact, it’s necessary and we should carry it quite a bit further and fix some of these damn books that have annoyed and offended me over the years:

Chaucer’s Canturbury Tales
Too much sex. Adultery. Sexism. Too hard to read. Any sections with offensive attitudes should be rewritten with modern sensibilities in mind, and sexual situations should be deleted.

Shakespeare
Violence. Betrayal. Lust. Sexism. “The Taming of the Shrew?” Indeed! “The Opression of the Liberated And Self-Assured Woman” is more like it.

This, again, is too hard to read. I think the works of both of these authors, and everything else written in old english, should be published exclusively in the vernacular: “But soft, what light from yonder window breaks? It is the east, and juliet is the sun!” Would become “Oh, she must be home-her light’s on. And oh damn, is she a hottie!”

John Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men
Racism, murder, violence. Mocking of a disabled person. And the main characters even conspire to imprison innocent rabbits for their own sick amusement!

The Bible
Murder. Deception. Adultery. Oppression. Slavery. Racism. Slaughter. Conquest. Sex. Espionage. Vandalism. Anti-environmentalism.
This is an outrage!

[–End Angry Sarcasm–]

This kind of crap really enrages me. It is bred from stupidity and from the arrogance of assuming that you know what’s best for me better than I do, and so you must protect me from myself. And it is also arrogance to think you know better than the author what he meant to say. Literature is art, and is part of history, even if not a historical document. Orwell said “He who controls the past controls the future.” This is a stride towards Big Brother rewriting the past.

38

I think it’s somehow emblematic of the PC mentality when several posters are holding up “Little Black Sambo” as an example of racism, indicating they’ve never read the book!

“Little Black Sambo” is a elementary-level children’s book about a litle boy whose mother makes him a red jacket and blue trousers. He then gets mugged by a series of tigers who take his clothes. The tigers quarrel over which one is the grandest, chase each other around a tree, and turn into butter. Little Black Sambo and his parents have the butter poured over pancakes, the end. The book is set in India, not Africa. The book was written in 1899 by an English author, Helen Bannerman, and Victorian English folk thought of Indians as “black.” There is no racial stereotyping, no making fun of black people, not a speck of racism (although the Tiger-Americans might be able to claim discrimination).

39

thanks deepbluesea, i knew someone had to know the books i meant!

actually, i had a conversation with my mother about this today (nice woman, you’d like her) and she remembers reading “little black sambo” as a child. and she grew up in zimbabwe in the 1950s. she remembers the tigers melting, and turning into golden syrup…or butter…whatever.
she thought it was a very bizarre story and that it bore no relation to reality, either in the fact that tigers melted, or that black people were called sambos!
like i said, kids do know what is fact and what is fiction.

and if the tigers were indian, they can hardly be tiger americans, can they goboy?
is that some ulgy americocentrism i detect? bad goboy, very bad.

40

The emphasis in all cases is mine. I agree with every word.

As to the OP there seems to be a lot of jabber on this thread trying to find justification for censorship. They call it editing and change and justify it by claiming they are protecting our children. Someone said that it was fine as long as the changes were good ones. GOOD according to whose standards? If you leave it to me I would go with the old version, instead of the mambee pambee version in the OP.
Our country is not about changing, editing, censoring, it is about things like the First Amendment. We need to learn about and defend the rights and freedoms we have and defend them, not tear them down. As Lib might say everything else is bullshit.