Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Bowdlerising Factory

[dyqik]

It is taught in primary schools. It's taught in nurseries!

No it's not. Nurseries and primary schools do not ask pupils to analyze how an author's viewpoints and experience affect the language and characterisations in a children's novel.

ETA: Largely they haven't been taught the social history necessary to do that either.

[bagpuss]

It is taught in primary schools. It's taught in nurseries!

Young children absolutely rebel against parents, in the sense of escaping parental control. Almost every story has the children acting without or beyond their parents, frequently with a bad guardian to escape from. Have you never hovered behind a two year old who is marching away from parents in defiance of already established rules?

I agree that there's subtle bigotry in Dahl, such as "Fickelgruber" being one of Wonka's rival chocolate makers, and that's worthless crap that should be edited. But that's completely different to asking children if it's unfair to Augustus Gloop to call him fat or unfair to girls to make Mr Fox's cubs boys, which are everyday discussions coming out of the books. Changing language does not change reality.

OK, so you agree that some things should be edited?

So is it really that all we're arguing about here is where the line should be drawn along the scale from racism and anti-semitism, via "fat" and "ugly" to making some boys into girls? Because if so, a lot of your scathing posts above don't really seem to fit with the fact that you're in agreement with racism being expunged.

[bagpuss]

It is taught in primary schools. It's taught in nurseries!

No it's not. Nurseries and primary schools do not ask pupils to analyze how an author's viewpoints and experience affect the language and characterisations in a children's novel.

ETA: Largely they haven't been taught the social history necessary to do that either.

Actually, at a very basic level, that kind of analytical approach is being taught at older junior level here in the UK (years 5&6 or so, so ages 9-11). But it's at a very simple basic level and only at the very end of primary school, so I think it's still very fair to say that any primary school aged child will not have the tools at their disposal to analyse anything anywhere near the level of the books they're reading at that age.

And definitely the social history won't have been taught, unless by their parents.

Of course, it may be that the bagkitten's nursery was very lax in their educational approach and she should have been questioning the motivation of Julia Donaldson when she wrote the Gruffalo as an aggressive (and slightly dim) male character. In which case, I must apologise to the bagkitten for sending her to such a poor establishment.

[lpm]

It is taught in primary schools. It's taught in nurseries!

No it's not. Nurseries and primary schools do not ask pupils to analyze how an author's viewpoints and experience affect the language and characterisations in a children's novel.

ETA: Largely they haven't been taught the social history necessary to do that either.

You really underestimate the standard of teaching these days. It's far better than you and I got at that age. You would be amazed at how well teachers explore these issues with small children.

[bagpuss]

It is taught in primary schools. It's taught in nurseries!

No it's not. Nurseries and primary schools do not ask pupils to analyze how an author's viewpoints and experience affect the language and characterisations in a children's novel.

ETA: Largely they haven't been taught the social history necessary to do that either.

You really underestimate the standard of teaching these days. It's far better than you and I got at that age. You would be amazed at how well teachers explore these issues with small children.

This is absolutely true - I'm constantly impressed at what the bagkitten is taught at school, especially when it comes to English.

But that said, she always struggled with the question that often came at the end of the more advanced level comprehensions that she was doing for homework "why do you think the author said x?" or "why do you think the author used this particular phrase?" It's hard, she's bright and she struggled, so just because the kids are being taught it, doesn't mean they can do it, and especially not at a level equivalent to the books they're reading.

[dyqik]

It is taught in primary schools. It's taught in nurseries!

No it's not. Nurseries and primary schools do not ask pupils to analyze how an author's viewpoints and experience affect the language and characterisations in a children's novel.

ETA: Largely they haven't been taught the social history necessary to do that either.

You really underestimate the standard of teaching these days. It's far better than you and I got at that age. You would be amazed at how well teachers explore these issues with small children.

Possibly they do do better, but my point stands, as illustrated by Bagpuss.

ETA: My brother was a cover teacher until last year, and my mother was a teaching assistant in a primary school on a sink estate in Sussex, until it got academized and taken over by an American company about seven years ago. There the teaching materials became heavily American, including teaching how Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves to a class of year 1s, half of whom were recent Eastern European immigrants or Middle Eastern refugees who didn't have enough English to ask to go to the toilet.

Variability in teaching standards can be pretty huge.

[Tessa K]

My mum taught me to read pre-school, got me a library ticket and pretty much let me get on with it. What's more, my parents wouldn't have been bothered by a bit of racism, anti-semitism, sexism, homophobia etc because that was acceptable in their world view. Not all parents are well-intentioned, humane people.

[lpm]

Funnily enough, I haven't seen a single person arguing that bullying and racism will magically disappear because of the changing of a few words in a handful of books. So feel free to laugh at that idea all you like, as it's something you've made up.

On this very forum, only a week ago, there were people thinking that changing words would change physical reality. This belief is part of the hottest topic of the day. I really wish it was merely something I'd made up instead of a surreal current fad.

But a young child calling a black kid in their class the n word because they read it in a book and had no idea that in the 21st century it's pretty universally accepted as an appalling word that no one should use - that I can absolutely imagine happening. The fault of the parents for not teaching them that, you say? Well, funnily enough, I don't have time to read every book my child reads before they do and, as I said before, I most definitely cannot rely on my memory of those books from when I was a child. I've had to censor the n word at least twice from classic children's books, when reading them aloud. The sort of quality book that you'd happily let your child read without ever questioning it, because they're "good" books so why not? Both times I had to censor the word, I was completely taken aback and had to remind myself how long ago those books were written. Had I not been reading them myself, I would never have known that the word was in there. Why would I teach my child not to use a word that I have no reason to believe they've ever heard of?

Children discover some words are "naughty" when they are 3. You stinky poo poo. They delight in the naughtiness, just as they delight in disgust. By the time they are 5 you can laugh with them about how their 3 year old sister is saying bum.

Bagkitten understood years ago that words could offend and hurt people. Care with words is learned before school age. When we tell a child a word is hurtful they get it instantly, because they have been hurt by mean people teasing them. If you censor the word while reading to them, there's no-one to censor the word when they read alone. Surely it's far better to use the words and have the discussion? Children enjoy the complexity of language and are interested in how it evolved.

Twain is the go-to example of this and it's part of a child's entry into the world of slavery, racism and still existing bigotry. Obviously you can't just chuck Huck Finn at them but why sanitise it?

I 100% agree. Has anyone argued that "Matilda" should be removed from all libraries and bookshops, or Trunchbull's evilness dialled down so she's just a little bit annoying? If so, can you show me where?

Philip Pullman. He wants Dahl to fade away and go out of print.

The reason we mock Victorians for behaving this way is in large part because they were doing it to protect the perceived delicate sensibilities of adults. As I said before, that is an entirely different thing from editing for children. We have a 9pm watershed on tv so that we know that kids can watch things before that time and not be exposed to adult content. We have ratings for films so that we know whether something is suitable for a child to watch. The idea that things are edited or made differently in the first place for the consumption of children is pretty widely accepted. And again, at what point has anyone said that we should pretend that nasty things don't happen? I'm all for kids learning about awful things through fiction first, so that they can gradually discover the horrors of humans and their behaviour towards each other in a safe way where they can sleep afterwards because "it's just a story".

What I'm arguing for is certain language being changed so that kids (and I'm talking primary school kids here) don't read books and think that certain things are OK because they read them in a book. And by "think" there I'm not meaning a clear thought process, but just kids absorbing words and language and using those phrases word for word because they read them in a book that their teachers and parents allowed them to read, so they must be OK, right?

That's why, while I have no real issue with the word "fat" being used in a book, the word "fat" being used with the clear implication that the author is using it to mean that person is lazy and inferior in some way, that's a different thing and I'd be quite happy for that to be erased. I'm not saying that that's the case with Augustus Gloop by the way, I can't remember the full description of him, but I'm expanding on my earlier point about fat being a problem if it's used to mean a character flaw. Describing Mrs Twit as "ugly" to add to the idea that she's a horrible person, is another example of what I mean. A book that refers to people in Africa as N-words and also describes them in a very casual way as being less intelligent or in other ways inferior, would not suffer from having that section removed or tweaked.

I'm not sure what sort of children's book you are referring to here. Boys adventure book maybe, Rider Haggard or John Buchan? Those old colonial books aren't exactly flying off the shelves, but the readership is old enough to explore the issues I'd have thought.

And what about the kids whose parents are nasty bullies and are bringing their kids up that way too? Is it a good idea if the books they're reading are also teaching them that fat or ugly people are bad people, for example?

The pathway through that is empathy, and empathy is strengthened by fiction. As we know, there's a real problem in getting boys to read fiction. If they enjoy Dahl then push Dahl harder, don't say they'd be better off reading Malorie Blackman and Michael Morpurgo. With every book that's read, empathy is strengthened.

I really don't think you are going to get far with bullies brought up by awful parents by tweaking language and thinking it will change views. It's the story that changes views.

Also, I like to think that the bagkitten is pretty intelligent and acceptably well-educated. She has parents who do their best not to discriminate against people for any reason, and to make it very clear to her that anything like that is wrong. She reads lots of books, and thank f**k turned her nose up at anything pink and sparkly from an early age so she's definitely not living in some kind of sparkly unicorn bubble. But words, phrases and attitudes that we read repeatedly are sneaky buggers and can influence our own attitudes without us even realising it and I'd be happier if certain words, phrases and attitudes never got into her head in the first place. Stuff we read as kids sticks, firmly. I still sometimes, though thankfully now only in my own head, use the word "misled", pronounced my-zulled, because I read it in books as a kid and didn't know it was really mis-led. It has a subtly different meaning to mis-led as my understanding of the meaning from the context was obviously slightly off. But even decades later and despite having learned the correct wordage somewhere around pre-teen age, it's still in my head. Yes, that's different from nasty words or phrases, but it shows just how much things we read as kids sticks, even in this case when it was corrected when I was still a kid.

I agree, children absorb far more than we can imagine. They get this everywhere, from books to TV to overheard conversations. Which is why inoculation is needed, not avoidance. There's a flood of sexism coming Bagkitten's way from society, so let her see it in the books she reads. Don't you want Bagkitten to be enraged by the male default in books, rather than be placated with girl fox cubs? To discover that Dahl was wrong to equate physical unattractiveness to badness?

[lpm]

You really underestimate the standard of teaching these days. It's far better than you and I got at that age. You would be amazed at how well teachers explore these issues with small children.

This is absolutely true - I'm constantly impressed at what the bagkitten is taught at school, especially when it comes to English.

But that said, she always struggled with the question that often came at the end of the more advanced level comprehensions that she was doing for homework "why do you think the author said x?" or "why do you think the author used this particular phrase?" It's hard, she's bright and she struggled, so just because the kids are being taught it, doesn't mean they can do it, and especially not at a level equivalent to the books they're reading.

But with books as good as Dahl it's not a one-shot. They are re-read. A childhood in books is almost guaranteed to lead to high psychological awareness of adults and other children.

[noggins]

OK, so you agree that some things should be edited?

So is it really that all we're arguing about here is where the line should be drawn along the scale from racism and anti-semitism, via "fat" and "ugly" to making some boys into girls?

Aren't most moral issues on a scale?

Because if so, a lot of your scathing posts above don't really seem to fit with the fact that you're in agreement with racism being expunged.

Shocked i am

[jimbob]

You really underestimate the standard of teaching these days. It's far better than you and I got at that age. You would be amazed at how well teachers explore these issues with small children.

This is absolutely true - I'm constantly impressed at what the bagkitten is taught at school, especially when it comes to English.

But that said, she always struggled with the question that often came at the end of the more advanced level comprehensions that she was doing for homework "why do you think the author said x?" or "why do you think the author used this particular phrase?" It's hard, she's bright and she struggled, so just because the kids are being taught it, doesn't mean they can do it, and especially not at a level equivalent to the books they're reading.

But with books as good as Dahl it's not a one-shot. They are re-read. A childhood in books is almost guaranteed to lead to high psychological awareness of adults and other children.

And the background bigotry is problematic, without affecting the story.


It's not exactly trying to remove references to antisemitism in The Boy In Striped Pyjamas

Nor is it removing bigotry from a story that leaves nothing if it's removed (little black Sambo, for example)

[bagpuss]

Funnily enough, I haven't seen a single person arguing that bullying and racism will magically disappear because of the changing of a few words in a handful of books. So feel free to laugh at that idea all you like, as it's something you've made up.

On this very forum, only a week ago, there were people thinking that changing words would change physical reality. This belief is part of the hottest topic of the day. I really wish it was merely something I'd made up instead of a surreal current fad.

I must have missed the thread where people were saying that words can change reality - could you point me to it, please?

But a young child calling a black kid in their class the n word because they read it in a book and had no idea that in the 21st century it's pretty universally accepted as an appalling word that no one should use - that I can absolutely imagine happening. The fault of the parents for not teaching them that, you say? Well, funnily enough, I don't have time to read every book my child reads before they do and, as I said before, I most definitely cannot rely on my memory of those books from when I was a child. I've had to censor the n word at least twice from classic children's books, when reading them aloud. The sort of quality book that you'd happily let your child read without ever questioning it, because they're "good" books so why not? Both times I had to censor the word, I was completely taken aback and had to remind myself how long ago those books were written. Had I not been reading them myself, I would never have known that the word was in there. Why would I teach my child not to use a word that I have no reason to believe they've ever heard of?

Children discover some words are "naughty" when they are 3. You stinky poo poo. They delight in the naughtiness, just as they delight in disgust. By the time they are 5 you can laugh with them about how their 3 year old sister is saying bum.

Bagkitten understood years ago that words could offend and hurt people. Care with words is learned before school age. When we tell a child a word is hurtful they get it instantly, because they have been hurt by mean people teasing them. If you censor the word while reading to them, there's no-one to censor the word when they read alone. Surely it's far better to use the words and have the discussion? Children enjoy the complexity of language and are interested in how it evolved.

Twain is the go-to example of this and it's part of a child's entry into the world of slavery, racism and still existing bigotry. Obviously you can't just chuck Huck Finn at them but why sanitise it?

Of course kids understand that there are naughty words and they mostly learn which ones are naughty by the reactions of adults or others when they say them. But those are different from hurtful words and I'm definitely not arguing that we should remove the word "poo" from all books.

And of course, children understand that words can offend and hurt but if they don't know the words are hurtful, or if they see words being used in a way that makes it seem like they're ok, even if they might have thought they'd be hurtful, then they might still use them. Or the insidious association of "ugly" with "nasty" might well remain embedded in their minds even if they don't use it as an insult immediately.

I've already addressed your point about reading the words and having the discussion. Obviously that's the best thing to do but few parents will do that when it's 5 minutes to lights-out time and they want their child to get to sleep. And again, what if it doesn't come up when parent is reading but only when the child reads it themselves? Plenty of parents don't read to their children, especially once the child is able to read for themselves.

I'm really not sure what you're trying to say by "obviously you can't just chuck Huck Finn at them but why sanitise it?" Are you saying a child should read it as it is (but isn't that just chucking it at them?) or, no, I really don't know what you're trying to say.

I 100% agree. Has anyone argued that "Matilda" should be removed from all libraries and bookshops, or Trunchbull's evilness dialled down so she's just a little bit annoying? If so, can you show me where?

Philip Pullman. He wants Dahl to fade away and go out of print.

Well, I disagree with him then. He's all kinds of wrong, Dahl's stories are too good to lose - they are brilliant at including nastiness in an accessible, child-approachable way. But I'm fairly sure no one here has said that?

The reason we mock Victorians for behaving this way is in large part because they were doing it to protect the perceived delicate sensibilities of adults. As I said before, that is an entirely different thing from editing for children. We have a 9pm watershed on tv so that we know that kids can watch things before that time and not be exposed to adult content. We have ratings for films so that we know whether something is suitable for a child to watch. The idea that things are edited or made differently in the first place for the consumption of children is pretty widely accepted. And again, at what point has anyone said that we should pretend that nasty things don't happen? I'm all for kids learning about awful things through fiction first, so that they can gradually discover the horrors of humans and their behaviour towards each other in a safe way where they can sleep afterwards because "it's just a story".

What I'm arguing for is certain language being changed so that kids (and I'm talking primary school kids here) don't read books and think that certain things are OK because they read them in a book. And by "think" there I'm not meaning a clear thought process, but just kids absorbing words and language and using those phrases word for word because they read them in a book that their teachers and parents allowed them to read, so they must be OK, right?

That's why, while I have no real issue with the word "fat" being used in a book, the word "fat" being used with the clear implication that the author is using it to mean that person is lazy and inferior in some way, that's a different thing and I'd be quite happy for that to be erased. I'm not saying that that's the case with Augustus Gloop by the way, I can't remember the full description of him, but I'm expanding on my earlier point about fat being a problem if it's used to mean a character flaw. Describing Mrs Twit as "ugly" to add to the idea that she's a horrible person, is another example of what I mean. A book that refers to people in Africa as N-words and also describes them in a very casual way as being less intelligent or in other ways inferior, would not suffer from having that section removed or tweaked.

I'm not sure what sort of children's book you are referring to here. Boys adventure book maybe, Rider Haggard or John Buchan? Those old colonial books aren't exactly flying off the shelves, but the readership is old enough to explore the issues I'd have thought.

Ha, the reason I didn't say which books they were was because I can't actually remember for sure myself. Not Rider Haggard or Buchan though, wouldn't have read either of those to an 8 year old bagkitten because I read both as either older teen or younger adult and remembered both as being fairly problematic. I'm fairly sure one was an Arthur Ransome, though wouldn't bet too much on my memory being right on that one. Not Swallows and Amazons and not Missee Lee - there's plenty of problematic language and themes in that one so we talked about it a lot before reading it, and only chose to read it as the bagkitten loved the others and wanted to read them all. Possibly one of the others though, and I'd been lulled into a false sense of security by S&A being mostly harmless and Missee Lee being very clearly different from the others. Can't for the life of me remember what the other was as we were getting through quite a lot of similar kids' classics at around that time.

And what about the kids whose parents are nasty bullies and are bringing their kids up that way too? Is it a good idea if the books they're reading are also teaching them that fat or ugly people are bad people, for example?

The pathway through that is empathy, and empathy is strengthened by fiction. As we know, there's a real problem in getting boys to read fiction. If they enjoy Dahl then push Dahl harder, don't say they'd be better off reading Malorie Blackman and Michael Morpurgo. With every book that's read, empathy is strengthened.

I really don't think you are going to get far with bullies brought up by awful parents by tweaking language and thinking it will change views. It's the story that changes views.

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of why I think the language should be changed. I don't expect tweaking language to change views but I do expect that failing to tweak language will get in the way of the story changing views. You clearly agree that "Fickelgruber" should be removed but why, if it won't change any views? Again, you clearly think that some things are wrong and should be changed but in the very same posts you're arguing that changing language won't change anything. You're not making sense.

Also, I like to think that the bagkitten is pretty intelligent and acceptably well-educated. She has parents who do their best not to discriminate against people for any reason, and to make it very clear to her that anything like that is wrong. She reads lots of books, and thank f**k turned her nose up at anything pink and sparkly from an early age so she's definitely not living in some kind of sparkly unicorn bubble. But words, phrases and attitudes that we read repeatedly are sneaky buggers and can influence our own attitudes without us even realising it and I'd be happier if certain words, phrases and attitudes never got into her head in the first place. Stuff we read as kids sticks, firmly. I still sometimes, though thankfully now only in my own head, use the word "misled", pronounced my-zulled, because I read it in books as a kid and didn't know it was really mis-led. It has a subtly different meaning to mis-led as my understanding of the meaning from the context was obviously slightly off. But even decades later and despite having learned the correct wordage somewhere around pre-teen age, it's still in my head. Yes, that's different from nasty words or phrases, but it shows just how much things we read as kids sticks, even in this case when it was corrected when I was still a kid.

I agree, children absorb far more than we can imagine. They get this everywhere, from books to TV to overheard conversations. Which is why inoculation is needed, not avoidance. There's a flood of sexism coming Bagkitten's way from society, so let her see it in the books she reads. Don't you want Bagkitten to be enraged by the male default in books, rather than be placated with girl fox cubs? To discover that Dahl was wrong to equate physical unattractiveness to badness?

Meh, don't really care that much about editing boy fox cubs into girls - I really don't mind what they do on that one, and I thought I'd made that pretty clear. "Fat" is below your caring-about-it level and this is below mine. While the gender imbalance is wrong, and is so across the vast majority of literature, both adult and kids', including books being published here and now, I think a few girl/boy fox cubs here or there is just too subtle to make any difference in the scheme of things. Or maybe it's just that so much would need to be changed that it seems pointless changing one thing in one book.

I think you possibly have too much faith in people in general and their ability to get past the stuff they read as kids, though. Do you think that most people actually do discover that equating physical unattractiveness and badness is wrong? At least at a subconscious level? Just look at all the films where the baddy has some kind of disfiguring disability, disease or injury. It's a very common and insidious idea and again, while I don't expect changing words will make that go away, keeping the words will definitely make it harder for it to go away.

[bagpuss]

You really underestimate the standard of teaching these days. It's far better than you and I got at that age. You would be amazed at how well teachers explore these issues with small children.

This is absolutely true - I'm constantly impressed at what the bagkitten is taught at school, especially when it comes to English.

But that said, she always struggled with the question that often came at the end of the more advanced level comprehensions that she was doing for homework "why do you think the author said x?" or "why do you think the author used this particular phrase?" It's hard, she's bright and she struggled, so just because the kids are being taught it, doesn't mean they can do it, and especially not at a level equivalent to the books they're reading.

But with books as good as Dahl it's not a one-shot. They are re-read. A childhood in books is almost guaranteed to lead to high psychological awareness of adults and other children.

Maybe. I have to say there are plenty of Dahl books I've never even read once, mainly because by the time they were published I'd moved on past children's books and the bagkitten read them herself. And if I hadn't had a child, I'd probably never have read any of them more than once, either.

[bagpuss]

OK, so you agree that some things should be edited?

So is it really that all we're arguing about here is where the line should be drawn along the scale from racism and anti-semitism, via "fat" and "ugly" to making some boys into girls?

Aren't most moral issues on a scale?

Yes, exactly. My point is that while lpm is arguing very hard that we shouldn't change language, she [I think, apologies if I've misgendered] is happy to change language where it suits, as apparently that's only right. So while the only difference between us is where on that scale we draw the line, you'd never get that impression from her* adamant arguments that children should be exposed to all the nastiness in the world as it's only good for them (yeah, OK, that's a heck of a paraphrase - it is, of course, intentional hyperbole, before anyone gets annoyed at me for misrepresenting what she* said).

Because if so, a lot of your scathing posts above don't really seem to fit with the fact that you're in agreement with racism being expunged.

Shocked i am

Indeed

[lpm]

Because if so, a lot of your scathing posts above don't really seem to fit with the fact that you're in agreement with racism being expunged.

Shocked i am

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm absolutely against racism being expunged. I want to see racism in children's books. That's how children will best learn to feel empathy for the victims of racism.

The bit I'm happy to change is the pathetic dogwhistle of "Fickelgruber", which is irrelevant and far too subtle for the readership age. Being fat is both relevant and not subtle at all.

[jimbob]

Because if so, a lot of your scathing posts above don't really seem to fit with the fact that you're in agreement with racism being expunged.

Shocked i am

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm absolutely against racism being expunged. I want to see racism in children's books. That's how children will best learn to feel empathy for the victims of racism.

The bit I'm happy to change is the pathetic dogwhistle of "Fickelgruber", which is irrelevant and far too subtle for the readership age. Being fat is both relevant and not subtle at all.

There are lots of subtle racist assumptions in children's books which are similar to the subtle antisemitism you mentioned.

[noggins]

I read a lot as a kid, and as you all know, i’ve the empathy of a slug.

Pullman is a pious bore and his books are hugely overrated.

Im puzzled by fickelgruber. I always thought of him as a kraut.


Im supposed im most annoyed by the sneaky tactic of coflating the dubious changes with worthy ones.

[bagpuss]

Because if so, a lot of your scathing posts above don't really seem to fit with the fact that you're in agreement with racism being expunged.

Shocked i am

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm absolutely against racism being expunged. I want to see racism in children's books. That's how children will best learn to feel empathy for the victims of racism.

The bit I'm happy to change is the pathetic dogwhistle of "Fickelgruber", which is irrelevant and far too subtle for the readership age. Being fat is both relevant and not subtle at all.

OK, so partly I misunderstood your point and partly I phrased what I said badly.

That said, I'm not entirely sure I see the logic in your argument. I totally see the difference between racism as a necessary part of a story - either for plot or for scene-setting - and the lazy use of a name which has implications that the audience won't understand. But when I said I'd edited out the N-word, you said this was the wrong approach and I should leave it in and talk about why it was so bad? Why not do the same with Fickelgruber?

[Tessa K]

@lpm

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm absolutely against racism being expunged. I want to see racism in children's books. That's how children will best learn to feel empathy for the victims of racism.

That only works if the racists are the bad guys. If heroes or the characters children are meant to identify with are racist or any other kind of prejudiced the child reader will at best be confused.

As has been said many times, not all adults are able or willing to explain why something is unacceptable and kids are unlikely to make a note in the margin to ask an adult later.

I'd agree with whoever said it above that Pullman is overrated, as is JK Rowling, but that's the nature of publishing.

[lpm]

Of course kids understand that there are naughty words and they mostly learn which ones are naughty by the reactions of adults or others when they say them. But those are different from hurtful words and I'm definitely not arguing that we should remove the word "poo" from all books.

And of course, children understand that words can offend and hurt but if they don't know the words are hurtful, or if they see words being used in a way that makes it seem like they're ok, even if they might have thought they'd be hurtful, then they might still use them. Or the insidious association of "ugly" with "nasty" might well remain embedded in their minds even if they don't use it as an insult immediately.

At school when I was about 8 or 9 there was a girl who had alopecia. She wore a wig. We called her wiggy.

There was absolutely no doubt in my mind at the time that this was utterly wrong and cruel and bullying, and I'm sure my classmates felt the same. We did it anyway.

These attitudes don't come from words or dud portrayals in books. They come from a deep element of humanity.

All of us did extraordinarily cruel things as a child. Most of us, thankfully more and more each year, develop well beyond these childhood stages and struggle for kindness and respect instead. It's inhabiting the lives of others through fiction that gets us there, wherever that fiction has these elements. Dodging the bad stuff is exactly the opposite of what needs to happen.

Ha, the reason I didn't say which books they were was because I can't actually remember for sure myself. Not Rider Haggard or Buchan though, wouldn't have read either of those to an 8 year old bagkitten because I read both as either older teen or younger adult and remembered both as being fairly problematic. I'm fairly sure one was an Arthur Ransome, though wouldn't bet too much on my memory being right on that one. Not Swallows and Amazons and not Missee Lee - there's plenty of problematic language and themes in that one so we talked about it a lot before reading it, and only chose to read it as the bagkitten loved the others and wanted to read them all. Possibly one of the others though, and I'd been lulled into a false sense of security by S&A being mostly harmless and Missee Lee being very clearly different from the others. Can't for the life of me remember what the other was as we were getting through quite a lot of similar kids' classics at around that time.

Missee Lee is pretty racist, inherent to the whole book. And it's not a good story.

Secret Water has children playing at being savages and cannibals, which is slightly problematic.

In Peter Duck he, and the working class child character Bill, use racist language. In S&A Titty reads Robinson Crusoe and talks with her mother about Australian aborigines with an "exotic others" attitude. The Big Six uses the N word when the youngest child, Pete, sees the photographic negative of the Cachelot being cast adrift and doesn't understand black and white being reversed.

[bagpuss]

Of course kids understand that there are naughty words and they mostly learn which ones are naughty by the reactions of adults or others when they say them. But those are different from hurtful words and I'm definitely not arguing that we should remove the word "poo" from all books.

And of course, children understand that words can offend and hurt but if they don't know the words are hurtful, or if they see words being used in a way that makes it seem like they're ok, even if they might have thought they'd be hurtful, then they might still use them. Or the insidious association of "ugly" with "nasty" might well remain embedded in their minds even if they don't use it as an insult immediately.

At school when I was about 8 or 9 there was a girl who had alopecia. She wore a wig. We called her wiggy.

There was absolutely no doubt in my mind at the time that this was utterly wrong and cruel and bullying, and I'm sure my classmates felt the same. We did it anyway.

These attitudes don't come from words or dud portrayals in books. They come from a deep element of humanity.

All of us did extraordinarily cruel things as a child. Most of us, thankfully more and more each year, develop well beyond these childhood stages and struggle for kindness and respect instead. It's inhabiting the lives of others through fiction that gets us there, wherever that fiction has these elements. Dodging the bad stuff is exactly the opposite of what needs to happen.

I'm not sure what you're arguing against here. It's not anything I've said, that's for sure, as I've never said anything to contradict any of this.

Ha, the reason I didn't say which books they were was because I can't actually remember for sure myself. Not Rider Haggard or Buchan though, wouldn't have read either of those to an 8 year old bagkitten because I read both as either older teen or younger adult and remembered both as being fairly problematic. I'm fairly sure one was an Arthur Ransome, though wouldn't bet too much on my memory being right on that one. Not Swallows and Amazons and not Missee Lee - there's plenty of problematic language and themes in that one so we talked about it a lot before reading it, and only chose to read it as the bagkitten loved the others and wanted to read them all. Possibly one of the others though, and I'd been lulled into a false sense of security by S&A being mostly harmless and Missee Lee being very clearly different from the others. Can't for the life of me remember what the other was as we were getting through quite a lot of similar kids' classics at around that time.

Missee Lee is pretty racist, inherent to the whole book. And it's not a good story.

Secret Water has children playing at being savages and cannibals, which is slightly problematic.

In Peter Duck he, and the working class child character Bill, use racist language. In S&A Titty reads Robinson Crusoe and talks with her mother about Australian aborigines with an "exotic others" attitude. The Big Six uses the N word when the youngest child, Pete, sees the photographic negative of the Cachelot being cast adrift and doesn't understand black and white being reversed.

Then The Big Six was indeed the Arthur Ransome one I recall. And the other examples you give were all addressed by us at the time*, although I'd not remembered them till you mentioned them here. I fully agree with your assessment of Missee Lee. As I said, I would not have chosen to read that one but the bagkitten was fully able to read at the time and had seen the lists in the front of the others, so knew there was one that we hadn't read. So I agreed to read it, but only after we'd spoken about the racism, and there was more discussion as we read through.


*Probably. I seem to remember Peter Duck was read entirely by Mr Bagpuss as the bagkitten was going through a phase of wanting only him to read to her at the time. I hope and believe that he did either self-edit or discuss.

[lpm]

Wow, you two have really put the reading aloud hours in.

[bagpuss]

Wow, you two have really put the reading aloud hours in.

Yeah, those were the days. She's 12 now and parents are just an annoyance. We're lucky if we can find something to watch on Netflix together.

[IvanV]

Fickelgruber is particularly reminiscent of Schicklgruber, the birthname of Hitler's father. Surely this is the thing Dahl would have most likely had in mind?

If we analyse it, it means Freddy-miner, and is thus a made-up fake name, distinctly German. Indeed, it is kind of impossible for it to be a Jewish name. Because Fickel, although being a petname for Friedrich, also means piglet. So how can a Jew have such a name? I know sometimes Jews were forced to have offensive names, but not like this. And -gruber names are not specifically or commonly Jewish either.

Maybe the impression is of some similarity to the commonly Jewish names Finkel and Finkelstein. Finkel means sparkle, so is a reference to the the jewelry trade. But there is also similarity to the names of Prussian aristocrats, such as Count Karl-Wilhelm Finck von Finckenstein, who was prime minister of Prussia in the mid-18th century.

There's nothing Jewish about -gruber type names. Gruber means miner, and just like that is a common German name. It is the most common surname in Austria. There are also many compound names, like Steingruber, Sandgruber, and Schicklgruber as mentioned already, but none of these are specifically or commonly Jewish. Apparently Paddington Bear's Hungarian friend Mr Gruber was inspired by a Jewish friend of Michael Bond. Though Hungarian Jews tended not to have identifiably Jewish names, whether linguistically German, Hungarian, or whatever - consider the famous 20th century physicists like Teller, von Neumann, Wigner, Szilárd, von Kármán. But someone with a German name, a mitteleuropa accent, and running an antique shop in London in the mid-20th century, you can think they might well be Jewish.

I don't exclude the possibility that Dahl made up a name he intended to sound Jewish, but did so utterly incompetently. That would be rather British, sadly.

It reminds me a little of the Japanese man my father worked with, called Mr Yoshitoshi. He couldn't understand why English-speakers had to suppress laughter on hearing his name. Perfectly normal Japanese name, he would say. It didn't help he was a rather humourless man. But to us, it sounds just like a comedy made-up fake Japanese name. Even though it isn't.

[lpm]

Another rival was Prodnose. I think we know what's happening here.