7 ms·

Censoring old children's books. Yikes. This is frightening in more ways than one. Besides the obvious censorship, and rewriting the past being a bad thing. I c

Censoring old children's books. Yikes. This is frightening in more ways than one. Besides the obvious censorship, and rewriting the past being a bad thing. I can't wait to see what they do to "Brave New World", "Fahrenheit 451" and "1984". It'll be ironic and sad if they burn the old unedited Roald Dahl books. But also have we reached cultural stagnation, that old media still out competes new ones by such orders of magnitude ? This is a huge problem, when every year we graduate more and more people wanting to be writers, artists, etc. This will only get worse with books now being written by ChatGPT and art by Dall-E/Midjourney/Stable Diffusion. Have we reached "peak multimedia" content ?

electriclove 4y ago
Seriously! This is absurd! (And I’m not a fan of his books) But this sort of thing has been happening everywhere since forever whether we are talking about Wikipedia, “history” books, or religious texts.
jdkee 4y ago
We may have reached peak content with a shrinking audience. See https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/the-state-of-the-culture-2023 https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/the-state-of-the-culture-202...
jemmyw 4y ago
> But also have we reached cultural stagnation, that old media still out competes new ones by such orders of magnitude Where is the next Dahl? Why is there no modern Beatrix Potter? Kids still love those stories and style of writing, which is less trite than most of the modern children's books. It does feel like stagnation, with lots of content being churned out but none of it with great staying power. Instead the old stuff is regurgitated endlessly with less and less of it's original soul.
- mcphage 4y ago
  > Where is the next Dahl? Why is there no modern Beatrix Potter? Probably crowded out of the market by the existing Dahl and Beatrix Potter books, which are plentiful and constantly in print.
- Avicebron 4y ago
  Maybe we have a culture have decided that we no longer value creativity in writers, artists, etc. We praise the chatgpt's et al of the world and laud their creators and evangelists, but it's pretty rare I see much about advocating for better salaries and opportunities that allow new Dahl's to exist. They're too busy being told as kids that they need to learn python. ..."oh but the market"
  - corbulo 4y ago
    Thats the real wow factor of chatGPT isn't it? We're able to automate & serialize creativity because our culture has become too serious to do it ourselves anymore. A highly creative culture would have very limited if any desire for it.
- mediasavvy 4y ago
  > Where is the next Dahl? Why is there no modern Beatrix Potter Do you have a child? There are all kinds of amazing children’s authors, loved by parents and kids, that have been creating books over the last 20 years.
  - petodo 4y ago
    I think he is asking for list, not general statement like this. I have a child which likes Dahl's books, tell me names of these amazing authors on par with him.
    - version_five 4y ago
      I'd recommend John Bellairs in case he's not on anyone's radar. His books are from earlier in the 20th century though.
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    I visit the bookstore with my kid regularly. She's 5. My older kids 11 and 14 do find plenty to read, but I disagree that there are plenty of magical modern children's authors capturing the 3 to 10 year old space. There are a lot of books, mostly dross. And the stories... "I loved my cat/mom/dad then they died" I get it sad stuff happens and kids need to process it but these aren't books that are going to delight. "Your cat died so I got you a book about someone's cat dying" You're right there are some gems but nothing serially good in the same way.
- darkFunction 4y ago
  Pretty baseless opinion. Julia Donaldson is an easy example but there are a lot of magical modern children's authors.
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    I've got all the Julia Donaldson books too. They're ok, aimed a little more at the pre reading level though. And the repetition: I get it helps kids learn but it's mind numbing. Also her books have terrible plot holes that kids see though, like if you're a princess captured by a wizard and you can change into anything turn yourself into a fucking dragon and spit roast the dude. Dahl just had a way with words and stories that speaks to children because he thought as they did, rather than like some adults think they do. Potter did world building with an extremely terse number of words. I visit the bookstore with my kid regularly. She's 5. My older kids 11 and 14 do find plenty to read, but I disagree that there are plenty of magical modern children's authors capturing the 3 to 10 year old space. There are a lot of books, mostly dross. And the stories... "I loved my cat/mom/dad then they died" I get it sad stuff happens and kids need to process it but these aren't books that are going to delight. "Your cat died so I got you a book about someone's cat dying"
    - Beldin 4y ago
      > And the stories...[...] but these aren't books that are going to delight. Dahl's best-known book is about a family of 7 that can barely afford to eat. One of his other famous books is about how giants stalk through the night to kidnap sleeping children and eat them. A third one is about a child prodigy who is treated to the point of mental abuse at home, finally gets to go to school, only to encounter physical abuse - by the folks that are supposed to keep her safe! If you think those stories can do more than terrify and scar children for life, I see no reason why you'd be dismissive of other works in which far, far less horrible stuff happens.
      - jemmyw 4y ago
        I never said they'd scar children. Bore them.
- 40acres 4y ago
  JK Rowling built a billion dollar children’s franchise shortly after Dahls death.
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    True. Although her audience is a little older than I was thinking. Also I didn't think of her because I don't like her writing, I find it boring. The stories are ok but the way she presents it is dull, to me. Obviously that's a minority opinion given her broad appeal.
    - oska 4y ago
      I don't think it will be a minority opinion, given the test of time. I think HP's star is already waning (and no, I don't mean because of the author's views on certain subjects; I think the faddishness of HP itself is already wearing off).
      - zirgs 4y ago
        A game based on her work is a top seller on steam right now. Her books are still being sold at grocery stores. I don't think HP will become irrelevant any time soon.
    - gsinclair 4y ago
      Loads and loads of very young readers have relished the HP books.
- bitwize 4y ago
  Careful what you wish for. The best candidate for a modern Beatrix Potter would probably be J.K. Rowling. And we all know what the deal is with her now.
  - ComputerGuru 4y ago
    Do we? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/opinion/jk-rowling-transphobia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/opinion/jk-rowling-transp...
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    I think all that political stuff is over blown and her opinions are way more nuanced. Personally, I just don't like her writing. The stories are probably ok but the writing itself is boring. Plenty of people obviously like it though. However, her audience is for older kids than I'm talking about.
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  > Where is the next Dahl? Working 3 jobs just to pay rent, they don't have the time or resources to write.
  - creato 4y ago
    You think people in Dahl’s era had more time and resources for leisure than today?
- NateEag 4y ago
  As a father of young kids, I cannot recommend John Klassen's "Hat" picture books enough: I Want My Hat Back This Is Not My Hat We Found A Hat The Rock From The Sky They're beautiful exercises in minimal, precision watercolor. They're written with delightful economy, and have a rather Dahlian sense of justice and consequences. He wrote them all within the last twelve years, IIRC. For older kids, Pax (illustrated by Mr. Klassen in the edition we picked up) is a lovely piece of writing, vaguely like a cross between My Side Of The Mountain and Old Yeller, but less tragic than Old Yeller, with a deftly-handled thread about emotional awareness and responsibility for one's own choices woven throughout. Oh, and the How To Train Your Dragon books, by Cressida Cowell, are wonderful, hilarious pieces of work about self-discovery, loyalty, friendship, and the hard, slow struggle to achieve mastery and skill in a world where people expect you to be something rather different than you are. Vastly, vastly better than the popular movies loosely inspired by them, and quite different - closer to a child-friendly Hitchhiker's Guide than the Hero's Journey of the films. Great new classics are still being written - it's just that the winnowing function of passing decades hasn't yet run its course, so they're harder to find.
  - oska 4y ago
    > Great new classics are still being written - it's just that the winnowing function of passing decades hasn't yet run its course, so they're harder to find. This is true, but I also think there are 'golden ages' for various genres of literature and I suspect we are not in a golden age for children's literature right now.
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    Thanks for the list. My older kids have already read the pax books.
- stuckinhell 4y ago
  So I asked my kids about this. It seems that old media itself is dying out when compared to new media for their generations. But the strangest part is, they will watch youtube videos of people reading books or playing videogames. I'm still not sure what to think about this.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yucky 4y ago
> It'll be ironic and sad if they burn the old unedited Roald Dahl books. "They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em, while arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells, Rally round the family, pockets full of shells"
ajross 4y ago
> But also have we reached cultural stagnation, that old media still out competes new ones by such orders of magnitude ? Uh... Roald Dahl is one of, arguably the greatest children's author of the 20th century. It's not like we're reprinting old pulp here because we can't write new stuff. Frankly I think your hyperbole is misplaced. Dahl's works are republished, and they're children's literature, so it's not hard to imagine how mid-20th-century conceptions might be seen as a bit much for the target audience. No one's trying to prevent kids from reading the existing books[1], they're just trying to make a buck selling them to modern parents. Does that make this a good idea? No, it's dumb. But it's hardly "yikes" territory either. [1] Which would be the "censorship" you're talking about.
- stuckinhell 4y ago
  This is not simple republishing. The editing occurring is censorship because modern sensibilities are different today. Roald Dahl was notorious about hating people editing his works. Censorship via stealth editing is just extremely gross maybe even as bad as burning books. If those works don't meet modern standards, let new books be made. It certainly is Yikes territory to me and apparently thousands of others on reddit and twitter.
  - ajross 4y ago
    > This is not simple republishing. The editing occurring is censorship because modern sensibilities are different today. Good grief. That's simply not what censorship means. "Editting" happens all the time. Are journalists being "censored" when the published article doesn't match their words? In fact with translations, "editting" happens every time, by definition. How many times has the Bible been censored by now? If you want hyperbole about interpreting The Decline of Western Civilization into internet argumentation: how about how no one cares about words anymore and wants to call everything a maximalist insult. "Censorship" doesn't mean anything anymore, it just means "someone did something I don't like". Seriously, go to the library and see if anyone is trying to censor Matilda.
    - stuckinhell 4y ago
jaybrendansmith 4y ago
This is terrible. You cannot have Dahl without his irascible self. It's one key reason why he is so loved. There's a certain honesty in calling a character a 'fat old gnome' that appeals to children. Mrs. Sponge will always be 'the fat one'.
pessimizer 4y ago
> I can't wait to see what they do to "Brave New World", "Fahrenheit 451" and "1984" You can see it with successive movie adaptations: the decorations are the same, but all the messages get reversed, they focus on action, and they add hopeful endings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(2018_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(2018_film)
- oska 4y ago
  By the by, François Truffaut's 1966 adaptation is amazing, and well worth seeking out

electriclove 4y ago

Seriously! This is absurd! (And I’m not a fan of his books) But this sort of thing has been happening everywhere since forever whether we are talking about Wikipedia, “history” books, or religious texts.

jdkee 4y ago

We may have reached peak content with a shrinking audience. See https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/the-state-of-the-culture-2023 https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/the-state-of-the-culture-202...

jemmyw 4y ago

> But also have we reached cultural stagnation, that old media still out competes new ones by such orders of magnitude Where is the next Dahl? Why is there no modern Beatrix Potter? Kids still love those stories and style of writing, which is less trite than most of the modern children's books. It does feel like stagnation, with lots of content being churned out but none of it with great staying power. Instead the old stuff is regurgitated endlessly with less and less of it's original soul.

mcphage 4y ago
> Where is the next Dahl? Why is there no modern Beatrix Potter? Probably crowded out of the market by the existing Dahl and Beatrix Potter books, which are plentiful and constantly in print.
Avicebron 4y ago
Maybe we have a culture have decided that we no longer value creativity in writers, artists, etc. We praise the chatgpt's et al of the world and laud their creators and evangelists, but it's pretty rare I see much about advocating for better salaries and opportunities that allow new Dahl's to exist. They're too busy being told as kids that they need to learn python. ..."oh but the market"
- corbulo 4y ago
  Thats the real wow factor of chatGPT isn't it? We're able to automate & serialize creativity because our culture has become too serious to do it ourselves anymore. A highly creative culture would have very limited if any desire for it.
mediasavvy 4y ago
> Where is the next Dahl? Why is there no modern Beatrix Potter Do you have a child? There are all kinds of amazing children’s authors, loved by parents and kids, that have been creating books over the last 20 years.
- petodo 4y ago
  I think he is asking for list, not general statement like this. I have a child which likes Dahl's books, tell me names of these amazing authors on par with him.
  - version_five 4y ago
    I'd recommend John Bellairs in case he's not on anyone's radar. His books are from earlier in the 20th century though.
- jemmyw 4y ago
  I visit the bookstore with my kid regularly. She's 5. My older kids 11 and 14 do find plenty to read, but I disagree that there are plenty of magical modern children's authors capturing the 3 to 10 year old space. There are a lot of books, mostly dross. And the stories... "I loved my cat/mom/dad then they died" I get it sad stuff happens and kids need to process it but these aren't books that are going to delight. "Your cat died so I got you a book about someone's cat dying" You're right there are some gems but nothing serially good in the same way.
darkFunction 4y ago
Pretty baseless opinion. Julia Donaldson is an easy example but there are a lot of magical modern children's authors.
- jemmyw 4y ago
  I've got all the Julia Donaldson books too. They're ok, aimed a little more at the pre reading level though. And the repetition: I get it helps kids learn but it's mind numbing. Also her books have terrible plot holes that kids see though, like if you're a princess captured by a wizard and you can change into anything turn yourself into a fucking dragon and spit roast the dude. Dahl just had a way with words and stories that speaks to children because he thought as they did, rather than like some adults think they do. Potter did world building with an extremely terse number of words. I visit the bookstore with my kid regularly. She's 5. My older kids 11 and 14 do find plenty to read, but I disagree that there are plenty of magical modern children's authors capturing the 3 to 10 year old space. There are a lot of books, mostly dross. And the stories... "I loved my cat/mom/dad then they died" I get it sad stuff happens and kids need to process it but these aren't books that are going to delight. "Your cat died so I got you a book about someone's cat dying"
  - Beldin 4y ago
    > And the stories...[...] but these aren't books that are going to delight. Dahl's best-known book is about a family of 7 that can barely afford to eat. One of his other famous books is about how giants stalk through the night to kidnap sleeping children and eat them. A third one is about a child prodigy who is treated to the point of mental abuse at home, finally gets to go to school, only to encounter physical abuse - by the folks that are supposed to keep her safe! If you think those stories can do more than terrify and scar children for life, I see no reason why you'd be dismissive of other works in which far, far less horrible stuff happens.
    - jemmyw 4y ago
      I never said they'd scar children. Bore them.
40acres 4y ago
JK Rowling built a billion dollar children’s franchise shortly after Dahls death.
- jemmyw 4y ago
  True. Although her audience is a little older than I was thinking. Also I didn't think of her because I don't like her writing, I find it boring. The stories are ok but the way she presents it is dull, to me. Obviously that's a minority opinion given her broad appeal.
  - oska 4y ago
    I don't think it will be a minority opinion, given the test of time. I think HP's star is already waning (and no, I don't mean because of the author's views on certain subjects; I think the faddishness of HP itself is already wearing off).
    - zirgs 4y ago
      A game based on her work is a top seller on steam right now. Her books are still being sold at grocery stores. I don't think HP will become irrelevant any time soon.
  - gsinclair 4y ago
    Loads and loads of very young readers have relished the HP books.
bitwize 4y ago
Careful what you wish for. The best candidate for a modern Beatrix Potter would probably be J.K. Rowling. And we all know what the deal is with her now.
- ComputerGuru 4y ago
  Do we? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/opinion/jk-rowling-transphobia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/opinion/jk-rowling-transp...
- jemmyw 4y ago
  I think all that political stuff is over blown and her opinions are way more nuanced. Personally, I just don't like her writing. The stories are probably ok but the writing itself is boring. Plenty of people obviously like it though. However, her audience is for older kids than I'm talking about.
heavyset_go 4y ago
> Where is the next Dahl? Working 3 jobs just to pay rent, they don't have the time or resources to write.
- creato 4y ago
  You think people in Dahl’s era had more time and resources for leisure than today?
NateEag 4y ago
As a father of young kids, I cannot recommend John Klassen's "Hat" picture books enough: I Want My Hat Back This Is Not My Hat We Found A Hat The Rock From The Sky They're beautiful exercises in minimal, precision watercolor. They're written with delightful economy, and have a rather Dahlian sense of justice and consequences. He wrote them all within the last twelve years, IIRC. For older kids, Pax (illustrated by Mr. Klassen in the edition we picked up) is a lovely piece of writing, vaguely like a cross between My Side Of The Mountain and Old Yeller, but less tragic than Old Yeller, with a deftly-handled thread about emotional awareness and responsibility for one's own choices woven throughout. Oh, and the How To Train Your Dragon books, by Cressida Cowell, are wonderful, hilarious pieces of work about self-discovery, loyalty, friendship, and the hard, slow struggle to achieve mastery and skill in a world where people expect you to be something rather different than you are. Vastly, vastly better than the popular movies loosely inspired by them, and quite different - closer to a child-friendly Hitchhiker's Guide than the Hero's Journey of the films. Great new classics are still being written - it's just that the winnowing function of passing decades hasn't yet run its course, so they're harder to find.
- oska 4y ago
  > Great new classics are still being written - it's just that the winnowing function of passing decades hasn't yet run its course, so they're harder to find. This is true, but I also think there are 'golden ages' for various genres of literature and I suspect we are not in a golden age for children's literature right now.
- jemmyw 4y ago
  Thanks for the list. My older kids have already read the pax books.
stuckinhell 4y ago
So I asked my kids about this. It seems that old media itself is dying out when compared to new media for their generations. But the strangest part is, they will watch youtube videos of people reading books or playing videogames. I'm still not sure what to think about this.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

yucky 4y ago

> It'll be ironic and sad if they burn the old unedited Roald Dahl books. "They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em, while arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells, Rally round the family, pockets full of shells"

ajross 4y ago

> But also have we reached cultural stagnation, that old media still out competes new ones by such orders of magnitude ? Uh... Roald Dahl is one of, arguably the greatest children's author of the 20th century. It's not like we're reprinting old pulp here because we can't write new stuff. Frankly I think your hyperbole is misplaced. Dahl's works are republished, and they're children's literature, so it's not hard to imagine how mid-20th-century conceptions might be seen as a bit much for the target audience. No one's trying to prevent kids from reading the existing books[1], they're just trying to make a buck selling them to modern parents. Does that make this a good idea? No, it's dumb. But it's hardly "yikes" territory either. [1] Which would be the "censorship" you're talking about.

stuckinhell 4y ago
This is not simple republishing. The editing occurring is censorship because modern sensibilities are different today. Roald Dahl was notorious about hating people editing his works. Censorship via stealth editing is just extremely gross maybe even as bad as burning books. If those works don't meet modern standards, let new books be made. It certainly is Yikes territory to me and apparently thousands of others on reddit and twitter.
- ajross 4y ago
  > This is not simple republishing. The editing occurring is censorship because modern sensibilities are different today. Good grief. That's simply not what censorship means. "Editting" happens all the time. Are journalists being "censored" when the published article doesn't match their words? In fact with translations, "editting" happens every time, by definition. How many times has the Bible been censored by now? If you want hyperbole about interpreting The Decline of Western Civilization into internet argumentation: how about how no one cares about words anymore and wants to call everything a maximalist insult. "Censorship" doesn't mean anything anymore, it just means "someone did something I don't like". Seriously, go to the library and see if anyone is trying to censor Matilda.
  - stuckinhell 4y ago

jaybrendansmith 4y ago

This is terrible. You cannot have Dahl without his irascible self. It's one key reason why he is so loved. There's a certain honesty in calling a character a 'fat old gnome' that appeals to children. Mrs. Sponge will always be 'the fat one'.

pessimizer 4y ago

> I can't wait to see what they do to "Brave New World", "Fahrenheit 451" and "1984" You can see it with successive movie adaptations: the decorations are the same, but all the messages get reversed, they focus on action, and they add hopeful endings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(2018_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(2018_film)

oska 4y ago
By the by, François Truffaut's 1966 adaptation is amazing, and well worth seeking out