Laura Ingalls Wilder has been stripped from an award because of views expressed in children's books written more than six decades ago. Could Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton be next?
Were Enid Blyton
and Roald Dahl racists and should we stop our children from reading
their books?
That may seem
ridiculous and unthinkable, but if we follow in the footsteps of
America we could find ourselves seriously asking those questions.
On the other side of
the pond a once highly respected children’s author has had her name
removed from a literary prize more than 60 years after her death
because of her ‘stereotypical attitudes’ towards African
Americans and Native Americans.
Laura Ingalls
Wilder, the author of the Little House on the Prairie books, wrote
about pioneer life in the American west. Her books were published in
the 1930s and 40s, and her characters expressed the opinions that
would have been held by a section of society at that time.
“Ma hates
Indians,” says one character and “Kansas has no people, only
Indians,” says another. Exception has also been taken to her
depictions of white men performing in blackface.
So the board of the Association for Library Service to Children voted unanimously to remove her name from their top honour for children’s authors. The vote received a standing ovation.
Dr Seuss, author of
the likes of The Cat in The Hat and The Grinch, is now reportedly
under investigation by an Association for Library Service to Children
task force.
They are also
investigating the English publisher John Newbery (who died in 1767),
the English illustrator Randolph Caldecott (who died in 1886), the
businessman Robert Sibert, librarian Mildred Batchelder and writer
May Hill Arbuthnot to check for ‘inconsistencies’ between their
legacies and awards that are named after them.
Should we punish an
author decades or even centuries after their work was published
because the opinions expressed in their book don’t chime with the
current moral climate?
Is it right to
assume that the opinions expressed by characters in a book are also
the opinions of the author?
No one assumes that
Shakespeare was a murderer because he created Macbeth as one. No one
calls Charles Dickens a child abuser or a wife beater after reading
Oliver Twist, but they’ll find both between his pages.
Enid Blyton and
Roald Dahl are both still hugely popular children's authors, but you
don't have to look very far on the internet to find people who claim
to see racism, sexism and bigotry in their work.
Roald Dahl has been
branded anti-Semitic and the oompa loompas in Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory have been called racist. Even Enid Blyton's home
town was divided over whether to hold a festival in her honour
because some people found her work offensive.
Historical context
is everything. Surely most people are capable of using a bit of
common sense with this sort of thing.
People don’t need
to be protected from fictional characters expressing opinions that
they may not agree with.
Adults and children
alike do not need to have literature cleansed so that it only
contains opinions currently held to be acceptable.
Instead we should be
teaching children to read fiction with a critical eye, and to
question things themselves should they feel the need to do so.
Retrospective
censorship of literature is wrong. It’s just one small step away
from burning books.