The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh John Lofting was first published in 1920 and has since spawned multiple sequels, stage versions, and film adaptations. The adjustments included redacting a reference to girls having a crush on their school’s headmaster in the 1996 book, Say Cheese and Die – Again! having Slappy the dummy use a magic spell to knock a girl out instead of a “love tap” in 1998’s Bride of the Living Dummy and changing a group of boys making “a loud wolf-whistle” in 1997’s The Curse of Camp Cold Lake to instead say they “whistled loudly.” 3. Any changes were never shown to me.” Scholastic defended the alterations, releasing a statement that claimed that the changes were made to “keep the language current and avoid imagery that could negatively impact a young person’s view of themselves today, with a particular focus on mental health.” Stine quickly denied the claim, stating on his official Twitter account, “The stories aren’t true. Stine was among those who were shocked when it was reported that some of the books in his popular young adult series Goosebumps were being edited with his participation. Some cynics have commented that Puffin would likely make more money thanks to the controversy and the multiple editions of the same book. Twit in The Twists, is “beastly” rather than “ugly and beastly.” All references to “female” were altered to “woman,” so Miss Trunchbull in Matilda is a “most formidable woman,” as opposed to a “most formidable female.” Some text was also added to The Witches: A passage about how witches are bald under their wigs now ends with, “There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.”Īfter people like Camilla, the Queen Consort and author Salman Rushdie weighed in on the hullabaloo (Rushdie, who acknowledged that Dahl was “no angel,” called the move “absurd censorship,” while Camilla seemingly alluded to it in a book club meeting), Puffin announced that they would publish unexpurgated versions of the 16 books that were altered as “The Roald Dahl Classic Collection” while still selling the censored versions, giving readers the option to choose which edition they preferred.

The changes include removing every instance of the words fat and ugly as a result, Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is described as “enormous,” and Mrs. In February 2023, controversy erupted when it was reported that Puffin, the children’s imprint of Penguin Random House, was reissuing multiple books by Roald Dahl with language that had been altered with the help of a sensitivity reader.

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