Otto – The Bobbsey Twins mighta been around longer, but the copyright date, as I state in the OP, puts that book about 50 years back – no correction to timeline needed
delphica:
Well, it’s the first I’ve heard of it, and I’ve heard of (though I haven’t read) the Bobbsey twins ever since I was a kid.
Dijon, I don’t doubt that there are plenty of books that would be viewed as offensive today (sensibilities change, as I say), but it was my surprise at finding the apparently inoffensive Bobbsey Twins books suffused with what we wouild today take as unacceptable stereotype that hit me, and without warning. I mean, I expected that sort of thing from the edition of Little Black Sambo that we found (and didn’t exactl;y get, by the way – the edition I have correctly depicts Sambo as an Indian boy – not that calling him “black” isn’t still offensive).