Forget The Culling Of Badgers, What Is This I Hear About The 'culling' Of Books?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519806/Enid-Blyton-Famous-Five-childrens-classics-axed-school-win-race-equality-award.html

/// Deputy head Phil Clarke said many of the culled books had been replaced with edited versions. ///

When will Shakespeare and Dickens come up for scrutiny?

Talk about the Nazi's burning of the books.

[Gromit]

Books written in a different era can seem odd or out of step with current thinking. Adults are able to make an informed judgement and will know that the attitudes in the old books are unacceptable. Children do not have that knowledge. Show them a book with antiqated attitudes to black people and they may mistakenly adopt it as normal or acceptable.

So children should not be shown the books at school. If their parents want them to read uncensorred Noddy, they can do so at home.

[hc4361]

No books are being burned. You can still buy these titles in the UK
Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_8?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=golliwog&sprefix=golliwog%2Caps%2C131&rh=n%3A266239%2Ck%3Agolliwog

[hc4361]

Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

[Snafu03]

'Books written in a different era can seem odd or out of step with current thinking. Adults are able to make an informed judgement and will know that the attitudes in the old books are unacceptable. Children do not have that knowledge. Show them a book with antiqated attitudes to black people and they may mistakenly adopt it as normal or acceptable. '

Like 'To Kill A Mocking Bird' ?

[hc4361]

To Kill a Mockingbird is hardly junior school reading.

[Gromit]

Snafu

// Like 'To Kill A Mocking Bird' ? //

No. Not all books, just some whose authors were inadvertantly racist. Harper Lee was obviously more enlightened than Enid Blyton. Which is why I said can be odd, not are odd. Most old books are fine for modern audiences but some can be perculiar.

[FredPuli43]

Not only Enid Blyton. The latest editions of Peter Rabbit omit the final scene where Peter gets whipped by his father. And comics like the Beano no longer feature anybody suffering corporal punishment. Times change, and corporal punishment which leaves any mark is now illegal.

Children have to be protected from anything which suggests racism or the superiority of one race over another or another race's inferiority, don't you agree, AOG ? Young minds do not have the discernment of older ones.

[LazyGun]

I do not generally agree with censorship, and this re-writing of fictional books from previous eras seems a tad over the top to me.

That having been said, you could argue that the books could be culled on the grounds of relevance - not sure quite how popular they are nowadays, or how relevant. All I remember of the books was essentially that if you had read one, you had read all of them, and the phrase "lashings of ginger beer" which very likely did not come the books at all but came from some parody or other, probably the Comic Strip Presents... team.

I hardly think extrapolating the offence to include the potential culling/banning of either Shakespeare or Dickens is warranted, nor is the analogy with Nazi Germany ( Godwin in the OP?)

Nor can you really equate "To Kill a Mockingbird" a story exploring the issues, values and attitudes of the time and culture into which it was set, with "The Famous Five" and Blytons work, which tended to explore the relationship between rich kids, pushbikes, pesky foreign blighters breaking the law and tables groaning under the weight of ham sandwiches, pickled onions and other such delicacies :)

[jake-the-peg]

It's important to make sure that children are not exposed to such 'outdated' attitudes at an early impressionable age.

If they were there's a very real chance they'd end up wating their later years constantly pouring over the Daily Mail and posting race-obsessed posts online

[Postdog]

Nothing new this. I remember years back (80's) a council doing just the same with the same author.

[Gromit]

Enduring characters like Noddy and Dennis the Menace are still around because of their ability to adapt to new audiences and modern living. Dennis the Menace is more likely to own a iPad than a catapult.

Noddy is currently being shown on CBeebies in animation form. There is no Golliwog, but Noddy does have a friend and she is black.

I would much rather characters kept up with the times instead of letting them die out because they do not connect with the current generation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mut-_iO7fhY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[FredPuli43]

Nothing new indeed. Thomas Bowdler gave us the word bowdlerise. In 1807, he published The Family Shakspeare [sic], a volume of the Bard's plays, expurgated and revised with the express purpose of making them suitable for women and children. It left out anything and everything which could be damaging to the innocent minds of both.

He went on to produce an expurgated version of Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. His revisions were extensive, and not what we would ever regard as desirable, though, to be fair to Bowdler, Gibbon himself had a few quotations or phrases in Latin which he did not render into English, explaing that he left them "In the decent obscurity of an ancient tongue". Gibbon had a sly wit and a way with words which illuminate the whole work, as that suggests.

[mikey4444]

To kill a Mocking Bird was a set book when I was 12-13, not much after Junior School.

[bazwillrun]

Just another example of left wing dogma and indoctrination beign shoved down peoples throats

[bazwillrun]

one of the comments

"Sean Crosier you are politically correct fool and I seriously doubt your 'credentials' to be in education. To go to these lengths to win a silly award is beyond reason."

sums him up nicely

[THECORBYLOON]

BAZWILLRUN, do you agree that some things thought to be acceptable previously, are no longer acceptable?

[bazwillrun]

what i think is irelevant

the school only had to remove the books, but no theyd rather have things changed to suit their ideology

[askyourgran]

Noddy used to sleep with Big Ears, so I suppose that's still all right then.

[THECORBYLOON]

So you think that not allowing the books to be read at all is better than their being edited?

[woofgang]

I am not pro censorship but its true that for many (most) children....actually and many adults "in print" is enough to make it factual truth..look at the recent example on here of the Italian Lady and the "forced cesarian section"

I don't think its unreasonable to limit what children can see, hear or read until they are old enough to understand that times and mores change and what was acceptable in the past is not acceptable now.