“Classic” Roald Dahl Books Will Live On Amid Woke Rewrites Uproar

After swift backlash over the past week regarding the extensive and seemingly arbitrary edits of beloved children’s author Roald Dahl’s books, his publisher has announced that the original, unaltered versions will see a new release later this year.

Over President’s Day weekend, news arrived that publisher Puffin Friday hired “sensitivity readers” to help make changes in Dahl’s books for the modern sensibility, in preparation for a new printing. Removed were words such as “ugly,” “fat,” “crazy,” or “Black.” On Friday, the publisher kind of waffled, announcing that 17 of Dahl’s books, to be known as the Roald Dahl Classic Collection, will be released with its unmolested text, according to NBC News.

Fans old and new will now be free to enjoy the OG novels, including The Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, which are chock-full of delightfully grotesque moments, possibly offensive dialogue, maybe not woke characters, and certainly, off-the-wall prose that may—gasp—offend certain readers but will continue to delight kids worldwide.

This way, readers will be able to choose to read Dahl “whichever way they wish,” the publisher said in a statement.

“We’ve listened to the debate over the past week, which has reaffirmed the extraordinary power of Roald Dahl’s books and the very real questions around how stories from another era can be kept relevant for each new generation,” Francesca Dow, managing director of Penguin Random House Children’s, said in a statement. “We also recognize the importance of keeping Dahl’s classic texts in print.”

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