British children's author, short-story writer, playwright and versifier Roald Dahl (1916 - 1995), 11th December 1971. (Photo by Ronald Dumont/Daily Express/Getty Images) LONDON (AP) - Critics are accusing the British publisher of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s books of censorship after it removed colorful language from works such as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Matilda" to make them more acceptable to modern readers.A review of new editions of Dahl’s books now available in bookstores shows that some passages relating to weight, mental health, gender and race were altered.
The changes made by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Random House, first were reported by Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.Augustus Gloop, Charlie’s gluttonous antagonist in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," which originally was published in 1964, is no longer "enormously fat," just "enormous." In the new edition of "Witches," a supernatural female posing as an ordinary woman may be working as a "top scientist or running a business" instead of as a "cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman."The word "black" was removed from the description of the terrible tractors in 1970s "The Fabulous Mr.
Fox." The machines are now simply "murderous, brutal-looking monsters."Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie was among those who reacted angrily to the rewriting of Dahl’s words.