EDITOR’S NOTE: Late last week, after this editorial already had been written, publisher Penguin Random House said it would publish “classic” versions of author Roald Dahl’s children’s books as well as the controversial altered versions that were criticized in here.
It’s a fact. Some of us are fat. Some of us have horsey faces. And some of us have wonky noses.
However, those colorful descriptions of characters in Roald Dahl books (and of real-world people), in days to come, won’t be seen by the tender readers of his children’s books. That is what Netflix (you read that right), the company that owns the copyright to the British author’s books, has decided.
In the place of some of the words and phrases and full thoughts in his books will be other, less sensitive, apparently more inclusive words, phrases and thoughts. That they make the books duller, change meanings and remove the author’s intent appear to be unimportant to the “sensitivity readers” of Inclusive Minds, a collective that says it works towards equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility in children’s books and which was hired by Netflix to, um, update the books.