The wave of editorial reviews of literary classics came to the popular children’s horror series “Goosebumps” by RL Stine. The writer himself asked the publisher Scholastic to make the changes, after seeing that Penguin has altered works by Roald Dahl (author of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”) to eliminate traces of language now considered inappropriate.
One example of a review requested by RL Stine was on a book where aliens abduct tall people. While in the original book they were described as having “at least six chins”, the revised version now says the people are “at least six feet”.
Other changes include how the ventriloquist dummy Slappy knocked a girl unconscious with a “touch of love”, and now the villain uses a spell. There were also cuts, such as a comparison of a situation to slavery, a joke where female students were described as having “hots” for the school principal, and a reference to MTV rappers in the visual description of a black character. Also, a guy’s joke calling “Anna Karenina” “girl stuff” was changed to “not interesting.”
When Penguin took the lead in changing words and making cuts to Roald Dahl’s works, there were many complaints, but then the rights holders of the 007 books, written by Ian Fleming, announced they would do the same. With the inclusion of RL Stine, the trend gains even more momentum.
However, Penguin has announced that it will make two different versions of Dahl’s books available, giving readers the choice of whether they want to read the more appropriate version for today or the original text. RL Stine wants only the updated version to deserve re-releases.
Source: Terra
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