Most unintentionally hilarious Amazon review I've seen in a while!

[conuly]

This is a review of the book Two Little Trains by Margaret Wise Brown. Now, I haven't seen much of the original illustrations. This book has been newly illustrated for the reprinting.

It's really a cute book except for one... little... problem. You see, when Brown wrote this book originally back in 1949, she saw nothing odd about mentioning at one point that the trains hear "a black man singing in the West". And not a few reviewers thought that was a little... well... weird. I did too, actually, and most of my review is taken up with discussing this issue. (And if anybody would care to comment, I'd love to hear it. Really.)

I was concerned enough that I actually posted two images of the spread in question, to help people decide.

This is what well-meaning E. Hoffer thinks:

A good book, but needs a little white out

I was shocked to find the phrase "...of a black man singing in the west" in this book. I realize it is an older book, but shouldn't it be edited to be P.C.?? I used some white out so our copy now reads "of a man singing in the West." A good book other than that.

I know her intentions were all for the best, and it's no different from everybody else just carefully not saying That Word, but... I can't help laughing over here. Too much "black man" in your book? Just use... white out!

Comments

[erisiansaint]

The thing is, you could also use that line as an opportunity to talk about racism. If you take out the word 'black', the automatic assumption on most people's part now changes to 'a white man singing in the west.'

I think it's better to leave the line in and talk about the history and what led to the line, than to white it out and pretend it doesn't exist and race relations are perfect, now.

Then again, that could be my white privilege and liberal guilt showing.

[conuly]

The thing is, you could also use that line as an opportunity to talk about racism. If you take out the word 'black', the automatic assumption on most people's part now changes to 'a white man singing in the west.'

Actually, there is an image of the (black) man in the moon singing (yay!) but it's a bit subtle, you might not notice it at first glance.