You know, for something you'd think I'd be interested in

[conuly]

I actually have *no* interest in Dahl's heirs authorizing changes to his children's books.

Which I guess mirrors the interest I had in reading Dahl with the kids when they were little. I read the hell out of his books when I was a kid, and we certainly read other books from my childhood, but I had exactly no desire to revisit any of his books with them. Not even in a "wow, just realized this is problematic" way, I just wasn't feeling it.

It *is* slightly amusing to watch people knot themselves up under the apparent assumption that this is something shockingly new. Yeah, no. Lots of books have endured edits over the years to update them and alter elements that somebody realized sounded really bad. Some of those edits work better than others. (Young Wizards, yes! Fudge series, not so much.)

I do have *one* thing to say, and it's not even on this subject. I'm not saying the sort of book this person decries doesn't exist, because of course it always has, since of course it's parents, teachers, and librarians who buy books and recommend them to others - but ffs, it's not that hard to find recently-published books featuring kids who largely are handling their own adventures. They're not even freaking hidden in a back catalog somewhere, as a commenter further down implied, they're getting Newberies and other awards.

Comments

[calimac]

Yep.

[oursin]

People have always been waily-waily about Wot The YOUNGUNS are reading (or seeing on the movies etc depending on period) - I encountered ES Turner's amusing study Boys will be Boys which talks about the panic over penny dreadfuls and the attempts to counter that with Healthy Imperialist Adventure Stories (I simplify somewhat) - but I have vague recollection of Victorian or even earlier writers deploring mimsying-up of tales for children, what is wrong with child-eating ogres and so forth, did them no harm etc etc etc.

So really, plus ca change.

[conuly]

Oh yes. And many of the Old Stalwart Favorites, how DARE they change them! were just the trash of the day - nobody encouraged their children to read Enid Blyton, not until the ones who had read her were grown up.

[andrewducker]

Oooh - I've read Sophia a couple of Dahls, and would appreciate some recommendations for modern books she might like.

(She likes grotesque, slightly scary stories. Comprehension age is probably around 6.)

[conuly]

Well, I will say that specifically Dahl-esque books are a bit unusual, only because he's got such a distinct niche. However, that commenter was lumping Dahl in with The Famous Five as "kids do their own thing", and if you're going to make that very broad lump then there's lots of stuff available.

In the USA.

I do assume that the field looks similar in the UK, but the annoying thing is that books hop the pond a lot less often than you'd think, so naming specific titles that are easy to find is a whole nother story.

[thekumquat]

Age 6 - try The Bolds by Julian Clary - a family of hyenas try to live like humans in Teddington. Lots of sequels.
Amelia Fang (she's half fairy, half vampire) is good. Again, lots of sequels.
Updated Worst Witch books. And a zillion knock-off series.

Have to mention Tom Gates - normal boy age 9-10 goes to school and doodles a lot. Gets in trouble sometimes. Much more wholesome than the similar American Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but the wide spaces and doodles help attract young readers.

[andrewducker]

Thank you!

[sabotabby]

So I think that type of book does exist, but it's demonstrably different than Dahl. Dahl is cruel and transgressive. It's not just that they have outdated vocabulary, it's that they posit a world in which adults are fundamentally mercurial and uncaring to outright evil. And you see a lot less of that. Lemony Snicket, probably? But now as then, the bulk of children's fiction is about teaching important moral lessons, not about vicarious revenge on one's tormentors.

I say this from a position of not remotely enjoying children's fiction—I basically stopped reading children's fiction as soon as my reading level was at a certain point, and missed the entire YA thing except when people forced a book on me like the goddamn wizard books. So I don't really have a dog in the race except that the kid I briefly was needed cruel literature in a particular way, and I'm sad that there isn't new and better stuff in that regard.

[silveradept]

Someone decrying "censorship" at changes being made by the publisher and the owners of the copyright to make the books less egregious really wants to shout "liberalism! Liberals are getting their way in the culture wars abd that's not ever been permitted!"

As for the commenter about Parents books, they need a librarian to help them find the vast number of stories where children are driving the action themselves, without grownups or where they only arrive late, because there's plenty there. (And also, they need to revise their opinion of what age children start choosing their own books and no longer have parents reading to our with them.)

[conuly]

Do you think it's a bad thing to keep reading to your child after they also can read on their own?

[silveradept]

Definitely not. It often becomes the child reading to the parent instead, but reading together is a good thing to do, regardless of age of the caregiver and the child. In my experience, there's usually a point where the kid wants to read on their own apart from any shared reading, and it's often well before where the point that you get to Dahl.

[thekumquat]

Reading to kids is excellent at any age - my eldest is 14 and I've recently read 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Sherlock Holmes (he went off and read the rest himself), and we've been going through PG Wodehouse, again which he has read some of himself. Often we end up just talking about the historic or social context, but as a way to actually get your non-talking teenager to chat to you, it's great.

[grav_ity]

I was mystified...and then I found out that Netflix has bought, like, all of Dahl's books.

[movingfinger]

Yes, this is about a corporation pruning and shaping material to ensure its own welfare, nothing to do with readers or Dahl or, hm, artistic integrity.

[movingfinger]

I riffled through an updated Young Wizards book, but don't need to reread them at them moment. Eventually, I will, because I very much admire Diane Duane for seeing the problem and sitting down to the work of keeping the books fresh herself, rather than letting them sink into the past, and the cellphone problem in fiction is a hurdle.

[ethelmay]

I think the main thing that I thought needed to be changed was her treatment of autism in one particular book (I get the titles mixed up but I think it was A Wizard Alone), but she decided to go ahead and change the computer tech and all as well. That doesn't exactly bother me (mostly I don't even notice those changes much when I'm rereading), but it's not generally what I would prefer given the choice. I always find it dislocating when a long series doesn't keep to one timeline (like Antonia Forest spreading a series over something like thirty-five years and setting each book about when it was published, in a timeline that actually covers only a few years), and updating the earlier books doesn't actually fix that, because you can't change a whole worldview with a few edits.

[thekumquat]

Another Forest fan!

Given the impossibility of updating the earlier books which are so rigidly Of Their Time, it was probably the best decision seeing as in 1982 there was a limited market for post-war stories and Enid Blyton and Nina Bawden and CS Lewis had pretty much filled it.

[kengr]

isn't he also the person who did the st Trinians cartoons back in the 40s?

[ethelmay]

Roald Dahl? No. That was Ronald Searle.